In an effort to say something, many preachers treat the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, whether or not they believe it took place, as a symbol of hope, new life or God’s love for us. In other words, they treat it like the
One of the saddest things for a Catholic is when a friend abandons the Faith because of suffering. We might think they have given up without a fight, and our first instinct may be to rush in and let them know how
Probably the most popular Catholic writer in England after World War II, Caryll Houselander kept up an extraordinarily sacrificial life, slept and ate little, and died of cancer in 1954, at the age of 53. She wrote very little about Lent, but
Why do Catholics and other Christians seem to gravitate to the passive-aggressive put-down technique of one-upmanship? It’s easy to imagine one of the disciples saying, “You like John? Why don’t you like Peter? What’s wrong with Peter? He’s just as good as
Observing Lent is a lot like cleaning up for guests. We do it not because they’ll judge us, but because we’re honored by their presence. Lent, argues Our Sunday Visitor columnist David Mills, is all about facing the reality of sin and
The 17th century mathematician-philosopher Blaise Pascal calls out our restless desire for “diversion,” how we constantly look for ways to avoid facing the realities we don’t want to face. Chief among them, our unsatisfactory selves. Our Sunday Visitor columnist David Mills explains
Adam and Eve were the ideal couple, the floor model, the textbook example, the paradigm. They had it all. But they didn’t want to be who they were. They wanted to be different people and, in a bold act of the will,
In this world, we have no abiding city, as the book of Hebrews tells us. We move through this world as pilgrims. However, as columnist David Mills writes: “Complicating matters, though, many of us have a kind of internal Jansenist or Puritan
We can see ourselves as a holy man or woman, and like the look of ourselves with a halo, but be less interested in praying more, fasting more, turning the other cheek, walking the second mile, giving what we have to the
Dorothy Day liked St. Thérèse of Lisieux when she first heard of her, from a young mother in the next bed in the Bellevue Hospital maternity ward. She very much disliked the saint when she first read her, though. She found “The