Stepping up the the Plate to Be a Better Brother

I write this coming back home for the first time after several months of mission.  The window on my plane flight home presents to me a cloudy sky lit ablaze by the waning sunset. It’s dramatic and theatrical, much like my writing tone.  Mission life has given me a unique opportunity to reflect upon and…

Navigating Attractions

If love is our end as human persons, then our lives should revolve around this question: How can I best love the people I encounter? Simple question, not so simple execution when attraction enters the scene and seemingly clouds all rational thought processes. When attraction comes, sometimes confusion follows. If we are not in a…

Who Are You in the Silence?

Blaise Pascal once said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”  This world is so full of noise and distractions, making it difficult to be alone with our thoughts. Personally, I love me some music. I find myself constantly craving to fill the room with music. Often…

When Mental Health is Part of Your Story

At the age of 8 I couldn’t stop touching door knobs. I mean I could stop, but it was like my brain wouldn’t let me. If I didn’t touch that knob the “right” number of times then something bad was going to happen. At least that’s what I thought. Not really thought so much as…

Know Thyself: A Practical Guide to (One Way of) Prayer

I always thought the phrase, “know thyself” was such a weird thing to say. As a teenager, I would often hear it spoken of at church and wondered why self-knowledge was so important to a person of faith. Isn’t that a selfish way to think, always reflecting on yourself? Well, to answer that question, we…

Made with Glory

I was eating ice cream and prancing through a parking lot when a very profound and simple truth dawned on me. I was singing one of my favorite worship songs, which has a lyric “I was made by You, I was made for You”, and the truth of those words flowed out of my voice:…

When Faith Gets Hard

It’s no secret that there are going to be times in our lives when having faith can get really hard. Just look at the world we are living in today. The state of affairs can sometimes make it seem like having faith is the worst thing in the world that a person can do. Or…

We’re Old Enough to Be Saints: Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

I was sitting in the middle of the church when it happened. The priest came up to me, knelt next to the pew I was in, and asked “Are you familiar with Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati?” To be honest, you could say I was “familiar” with him, but that was about it. I knew he…