Start here.
I have written here since 2010 on evangelization, parish life, Scripture, apologetics, and the moral life. These six are the best place to begin.
Go Home and Live as Missionary Disciples
If your faith feels humdrum, you may not have entered the mission yet. A talk to men on what that asks of you.
Formed By Distraction
Eliot described minds pulled from one distraction to the next. We now carry that in our pockets. What is it forming in us?
What Is a Catholic?
A plain answer: who belongs to the Church Christ founded on the Apostles, and what holds that Church together.
Why You Need Your Men’s Group
Before asking whether men’s groups work, ask what problem they are meant to solve.
Why Protestants Are Becoming Catholic at My Parish
What draws evangelicals and mainline Protestants into the Catholic Church, as they told me in class.
How God Speaks in Human Words
The first of four articles on how the Bible is at once a human book and the Word of God.
In the Beginning...
“In the beginning” life was different. It was meant to be different: better, holy, beautiful. It was not meant to be a disaster, a series of dramas, scandals, and sins, of hurt, use and abuse; of weakness, sickness, sorrow and death. That was not the original plan.
The creation story in Genesis 1 and 2 is meant to reveal how that original plan was supposed to go and how much our Father loves us. See, when we look at the rest of creation, we see things that, just by existing, given Him glory. Mice, just by being mousy, give glory to God. Dogs, cats, termites, just by being themselves, offer to God all that He created them to offer.
But for humanity, He wanted to give us more, and in return wanted more from us. God created us for love, for us to share in His love by sharing in His freedom. He gave us the ability to choose to love Him, to serve Him, because if love is forced or coerced, it is not love.
For love to be real, it must be free.
Subverting Moralizing Laws with the Natural Law
The natural law cannot and ought not be, in every instance, enforced by human laws. That is to say, human laws are a moral guide, but are not sufficient to make men moral.
Indeed, the lawgiver who wants to make other men saints by criminalizing all sin is actually stepping outside his authority over the community and is overreaching, according to Aquinas' understanding of the natural law. There are for Aquinas many things that are sinful and destructive, but which still ought not to be prohibited by human legislators. Such things, though evil, ought to be tolerated within society. Criminalizing such things causes reprocussions even more disasterous than the evil itself.
This struck me deeply.
New Podcast series
Veni, Sancte Spiritu! Come, Holy Spirit!
This is the theme for Life Teen, Inc., and thus for all their Summer Camps. Last week I was priviledged to host a whole week, delivering the HS as best as I could. The fine folks at the camp (looking at you, J.P.) recorded many of my talks and turned 'em into mp3 files so that I could share with you all through my podcast just what I have been up to.
The first one is the opening talk of the week, so there is a lot of invitations being extended to people who may not want or be ready for a relationship with the living God. We go easy on them because we don't want to push people away right off the bat. Faith is a big deal. We ought not to assume that everyone is open and ready to "go deeper" or "lean in" to it.