Scripture: A Mother's Lens

Whenever I hear the Acts of the Apostles read during Eastertide, I think it should be named the Adventures of the Apostles. Paul’s courage and conviction never cease to impress me, as rightly they should. His life is truly the stuff of legends, the subject of movies. Blindness, shipwreck, poverty, imprisonment—all for the sake of …READ MORE

Pew research suggests that young people are leaving the Catholic Church in droves. Sometimes it’s a lack of good catechesis; sometimes it’s the stubborn will in the face of cultural decline. But most likely it is a lack of one central and essential thing. It happens to be the same thing that all the saints …READ MORE

“If you love me, show me!” This is what the Gospel reading reminds me of today—those moments when we tell our children that words aren’t enough: that they must be backed up with actions. Just so, Jesus tells us that if we love him, we must show it in our daily actions. We must feed …READ MORE

As I was thinking about the approaching Feast of Divine Mercy this Sunday, I tried to remember the time in my life that I most keenly experienced the Lord’s mercy. The memory immediately surfaced—the occasion of my third miscarriage. My earlier two miscarriages, although difficult, were within the first twelve weeks of my pregnancies. I …READ MORE

A few years ago, I found myself celebrating Palm Sunday in Tifton, Georgia—the quintessentially charming Southern town if there ever were one. Think Steel Magnolias or Fried Green Tomatoes. I had attended my college roommate’s wedding the evening before and found the local Catholic parish the next morning. Although a native Alabamian myself, I’d never …READ MORE

What a gift to have such harmonious readings for this week! The Old and New Testament readings clearly pave the way for the great act of mercy in John’s account of the woman caught in adultery. We read phrases like, “remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, …READ MORE