If you think a novel set in 14th-century Norway has to be dull, think again. Sigrid Undset’s “Kristin Lavransdatter,” far from being a bore, is surely one of the most exciting works of fiction ever — to say nothing of being the finest Catholic novel.
My father suffers from dementia. In the beginning, he would amble along in a regular conversation and lose his place. Usually, he’d find it and come back to the discussion, and we’d all just continue on. Then he began to lose his time. He could remember something, but he didn’t seem to know that his brain was stuck in 1972. Now, he remembers my name, but he struggles with any further details. Conversations stop and start, and memories elude him even when I try to bring them to the light.
Q. I have a question regarding dating people who are divorced (Catholic or non-Catholic). At my age (42) it seems like the majority of those in the dating pool are in fact divorced. Many of these potential dates are through online dating apps, which don't list the person's whole history.
I had a conversation in the car with my girls the other day. We tried to come up with our own words to define holiness. It’s an interesting exercise in really drilling down on a fundamental understanding of why we’re here. We’re here to become holy, aren’t we? We’re here to spend a lifetime — however long that is — knowing God better and becoming more like him.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone who ever raised children found it an entirely easy job. Challenging, exciting, often rewarding — yes. But easy? You’ve got to be kidding.
In seventh and eighth grade, I was mostly a benchwarmer on my basketball team at the Wheaton Christian Grammar School in the western suburbs of Chicago. But a guy six years my senior would come to watch the games. His name was Todd Beamer.
To go to confession either helps us to return to God after we have committed a mortal sin or to deepen our already present love for him. Jesus Christ instituted the sacrament of penance, which extends to us the mercies of the Lord and challenges us to be more virtuous.
As kids, my friends and I often quizzed each other about what we’d do if we had superpowers. How would we save the day? With all the superhero movies popular today, it seems the whole world wonders: What would a real savior look like?
Every fall, the push to do more intensifies. Sharpen your pencil and dig in.
Produce more, study more, socialize more, exercise more, volunteer more.
Revolution vs. love
One of the most popular conceptions of the so-called historical Christ current in the secular world is the portrait of Christ the Revolutionary. The modern West, bound up in its own sensitivities and obsessions, seeks a Jesus beyond the Christ of the church’s faith and so often makes of him either a harmless wandering rabbi who merely teaches universal moral law, or a reforming firebrand and thorn in the side of all establishment, political, and religious alike.