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.
The Apostolic Church, Reinterpreted Today
What does it mean to live as Christ lived in present day America? I have no idea. The new evangelization requires us as Christians to live differently in the world today. We cannot walk around with this pre-Enlightenment European air of entitlement, spouting sayings about "Christian nations" and all that nonsense. This is not a Christian nation. Other than Vatican City, there are no more Christian nations. "Christendom is dead. Long live Christianity!" as Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen used to say.
I have been reading Acts of the Apostles lately with an ongoing irritation that I cannot seem to shake. The way they lived was not a once-only event. It needs to be revisited and reinterpreted in the light of today. I am not living the way that I think I should be, the way that I think my neighbor needs me to live so that they might have life. Here are three major things that stand out to me about the Apostolic Church.
Forgiveness is Weakness
Maybe I do hate you.
Maybe forgiveness for what you have done to me is too easy for you.
why rage? we follow the Crucified.
Who raged when Christ was hauled away to be crucified, a monstrous death for an innocent man? Who fought back against it, against the injustice?
It was Peter with his sword, and it was Christ who disarmed him. Not only did Christ disarm Peter, but he went further and healed the man Peter attacked. Uncomprehending, the apostles scattered, and Jesus was led away in chains.
As long as Christians think with the logic of the world and not the theo-logic of God, we too will be uncomprehending. We too will raise the sword in defense of our rights. And we too will miss the point the Crucified One died showing us.