Category: Reflections

Cooking the perfect steak involves a few key elements: Quality meat, good seasoning, the right amount of fat, stable heat and perfect timing. It also needs to rest for a few minutes, and believe it or not, resting the steak is the most-important step. Anthony Bourdain once said that the best way to screw up…

I’ve always had a conviction that the Catholic Church in the West isn’t relegated to the malaise it is experiencing today. I’ve always held that our tomorrows could be much better than our present if we just live out the hope that our faith inherently allows us to freely do. We are followers of Jesus,…

I grew up under the wing of a grandmother with an indomitable spirit and a deep, rich understanding of the Catholic faith. She was also an inventive cook, which meant that we never really knew what to expect until the food ended up on our plates. Sometimes it was delicious, sometimes it was awful. Despite…

It’s common to associate the mass exodus of young people from active participation in our faith with what we believe. That isn’t hard to do. The Church is certainly living through some challenging times. However, I think also we’re dealing with the effects of encouraging them to accept that what we believe doesn’t really matter…

One of the greatest things about music in ministry is that it has such a tremendous capacity to unite people. Music unites those who come to hear it, but it also unites those who perform it too. People from all walks of life and skill-levels come together to learn how to function as a cohesive,…

I’m just going to come right out and say it- I have a call to a prophetic vocation, and I’ve had it since I was young. I just never accepted it until recently. I don’t know what a lot of this means yet- but it’s a word and a topic that generates a lot of…

This is a hard time to be alive in the Church today. We’ve spent a lot of time, money and resources over the years trying to figure out why people are so disaffected or disengaged with the faith. Yet, like our healthcare philosophy in this country, we keep focusing on symptoms instead of identifying and…

I’ve never been very familiar with the Holy Spirit. I’ve been an “active” Christian for most of my life, yet that mysterious part of the Trinity is the one that I know the least about. Isn’t that something? I’m legitimately disappointed to read these words and realize that they come from me. Imagine being in…

I was hurt by the Church years ago. I had no idea how to handle or work through it at the time, so I reciprocated in kind and left. I left the faith behind and spent the next few years living a spectacularly-sinful life that could give the original prodigal son a run for his…