What Does Chastity Actually Mean?

Traditional. Pure. Restrictive. These are the words the culture uses to label chastity.  Even amongst Christians though, many of us lack a full understanding of this beautiful virtue. I’ve found that “chastity” oftentimes is one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around in Catholic circles, leaving many young people confused and without a clear path…

Who Told You That You Were Naked?

There’s a picture somewhere from my childhood of me with 3 friends at a kid’s pool party. Despite how long ago it was, despite having forgotten the names of those girls, I can never shake that image from my mind. At a certain point, I stopped looking at the joy on our faces. All I…

Break Up Survival 101

There’s no sugarcoating it, break-ups suck. Like a LOT. You had so many dreams and hopes for the relationship, memories built up, perhaps even families and friends intertwined. Sometimes the split is mutual, sometimes it suddenly comes out of left field, sometimes there can be dishonesty and other people involved and it can be really,…

We Are Not Consumables

Have you ever found yourself running through a list in your mind of all the things you have going for you, summarizing all the qualities and attributes that make up the best of you into a concrete selection of “desirables?” And once you have this list, have you ever mentally stacked yourself against the standards…

Don’t Get It Confused… Love Is More Than a Feeling 

I have a memory of a younger Me talking to my mom about boys and relationships when she suddenly said to me “You know, eventually I just had to CHOOSE to love your father.”  My little 13-year-old allusions about fairytales and love, that happily-ever-afters just naturally happened, that 2 people were just destined from the…

From Our Desire to be Loved… Deliver us, Jesus

I recently treaded through very dangerous waters as I made the brave decision to pray the Litany of Humility. If this is the first time you’re hearing of this prayer, it basically involves a repeated petition for several desires/fears that we ask deliverance from in order to become… well, more humble. (i.e. from the fear…

But We Never Even Dated

I know the pain of feeling an emotional “breakup”, even if the label of dating was never truly there.  Maybe this relationship was primarily over social media, or maybe it carried over into “real life”-hanging out without the label of boyfriend or girlfriend, but feeling more than friends, physical intimacy, or emotional intimacy much different…

Self-Loathing Isn’t Humility

When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5d’s, and one of my favorite characters on the show was Kalin Kessler. Kalin was this antagonist who turned into an anti-hero. As a kid, I liked Kalin so much because he had this dirty vagabond aesthetic, and I thought that was so…