My life as a Catholic father has taken some turns I could never have predicted. My divorce, annulment, and remarriage in the last six years changed the straight, traditional path that I always envisioned. However, one thing has been constant and unwavering—my faith in God and in Jesus Christ. In all I have done in […]
World leaders broke out into applause 27 times during the Pope’s address to the UN General Assembly last week, including when he called for the defense of the “right to life,” and called the family the “primary cell of any social development.” Pro-life and pro-family advocates welcomed the speech as an improvement upon the more […]
How do you pray when you are angry? How can you pray for those who oppose you? When I can’t find my own words, the traditional prayers of our Catholic faith can help. When I was going through my divorce, I had a very difficult time praying. I wasn’t sure of the words to use. […]
This pope is neither liberal nor conservative.
As The World Meeting of Families draws to a close, we can all take a moment to pray to one of the meeting’s patron saints, St. Gianna Molla. (The other patron saint, also dear to my heart, is Pope John Paul II.) St. Gianna is easier to relate to than many earlier female saints who […]
There’s a well-known quote that I know firsthand to be true: “The best gift parents can give their children is a happy marriage.” The love and happiness shared by parents bring joy to the whole family. Thus when I came to terms with the fact that my first bond did not reflect a happy and […]
Pitter patter the little feet came running from around the corner at the sound of my voice. Being a grandmother is the next best thing to being a mom. While my husband of thirty-five years is always happy to see me, I might think he was after something if he ran to me every time […]
By now, every Catholic — and a whole bunch of non-Catholics — are aware the Church faces a vocations crisis. Yes, we need more women and men discerning a call to join the religious life and the priesthood. It’s important that adults in the pews encourage such discernment as a legitimate, honorable and holy life […]
“Judge not, lest ye be judged” is among the most frequently-uttered passages in the Bible, particularly by those who wish to shut down any discussion on some objectively immoral behavior. Even so, this opening verse from Matthew 7:1-3 is also among the Scriptures’ most misrepresented and, consequently, misunderstood passages. As verses 2 and 3 conclude, […]
Untangling one of Pope Francis’ public statements often resembles taking a final exam. “How many inaccurate implications can be drawn from Pope Francis’ statement? Explain why they are inaccurate, referencing canon law, Church history, and prevailing cultural trends.” For example, take his recent statement that divorced persons who remarry outside the Church are “by no […]
Learning to pray together as a couple can be difficult, but learning to pray as a family with a small child is even harder. In the first year of our marriage, my wife and I struggled to figure out how to pray together. Though we’ve made some progress, especially since becoming Catholic, we are still […]
The Obama administration’s placement of LGBT rights at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy has caused backlash against LGBT rights in many parts of the world. But after repeated failures to re-define the family to include homosexuality, something may be about to change at UN headquarters. Obama’s multi-year campaign to discard the Universal Declaration of […]
A monumental development for the pro-family movement came recently in Geneva when the Human Rights Council approved a resolution calling for countries to take concrete steps to protect the family, described in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the “natural and fundamental group unit of society.” This is the second such resolution at the […]
In response to the US Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) decree on same sex marriage, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued this statement: …It is profoundly immoral and unjust for the government to declare that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage…. Mandating marriage redefinition across the country […]
If you are like me, you are in mourning. Not merely for a battle lost, but for the thousands of misguided souls who may be lost due to the Supreme Court’s misguided attempts at fairness. The legalization of same sex marriage is not a sudden event, however. Judging by the reactions on both sides, it […]
Envy, greed, selfishness, harsh words, sibling rivalry, infidelity, illness, tragedy, violence, abuse – the list sounds like much like the headlines on your average nightly news show or the subject of anguished conversations among distraught parents and grandparents lamenting the discord they witness daily in their own families. We listen to the stories, shake our […]
“Was daddy involved with us when we were little?” she asked. “Did he want to spend time with us?” I wondered why she was soliciting these questions although I guessed it had more to do with the fathers of the families that she worked for than her own father. As a young adult woman who […]
My friend Todd, a landscaper, likes to say, “Stop looking at your neighbor’s yard and fertilize your own.” This is in reference, of course, to those who think the grass is greener everywhere except under their own feet. Couples too often look at their own complicated, messy lives and wrongly presume it’s better with someone […]
Despite the message our culture sends, marriage and parenting aren’t the frightful things they’re often made out to be. The hardships that come in family life are outweighed by true and lasting joy, when we keep the proper perspective – perspective being the key word here. Parenting isn’t easy, but it makes us into the […]
When my family migrated from the Philippines to the United States in 1986, I didn’t want to go. I wanted to finish college at home and settle down with whomever God picked out for me to marry, after a courtship of at least five years. But God laughed at my plans. I met my future […]
Countless articles, memoirs and studies explore why so many marriages in our society deteriorate and ultimately fail. Just recently, a blog post at USA TODAY by Anthony D’Ambrosio gained attention for identifying the top five reasons that marriages don’t work: intimacy issues, financial strife, failure to truly connect, desire for attention, and an obsession with […]
The last month has, at times, been a blur. After being hit by a car on my bike just over a month ago, I have had to look at life through a different lens. Is there really an “upside” to tragedy? Indulge me as I reflect on the lessons I believe God is trying to […]
As they prepare to render a potential landmark legal decision on the issue of same-sex “marriage,” the Supreme Court’s justices made clear that their verdict will rest on a few questions: Is marriage based on biology or feelings? Who should decide whether to redefine an institution that stretches back for “millennia”? If justices begin tampering […]
In part 1 of this discussion on rethinking your birth control, I defined what it means to be a woman. Not just a modern woman, but a whole woman according to God’s design. Part 2 detailed attributes of her feminine genius in the form of female fertility. The cyclic ebb and flow of her fertile […]
