By Jared Staudt “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want” (Psalm 23). If we allow ourselves to be guided by our shepherd, we shall want nothing. However, many of us prefer to do things our own way. We prefer to act like goats, rather than the sheep who follow the voice of the shepherd. What are goats like? They are trouble: al...

As I tucked my five-year-old son into bed tonight he wanted to “say some more prayers for people.” I think part of his intent might have been to delay lights-out time, but how could I not honor that request? In his list of intentions, he included “all the souls in purgatory,” at which point he actually stopped and thought about what he was ...

It’s odd to me that the term “New Evangelization” has yet to catch real fire in the Catholic Church.  What I mean is that it has yet to become a common enough term that the vast majority of Catholics not only recognize it but that they also know what it means. In a nutshell, it carries forth the evangelical mission of the Second Vatican C...

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At a meeting for spiritual direction with a Priest (Fr. Paul) who is a family friend, I opened up about a particularly distressing reality in my spiritual life—shared here for the sake of edification.  What I tried to communicate in spiritual direction was this: while I don’t necessary struggle frequently with sins involving grave matter, my i...

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” ― G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World. One of the great dilemmas of parenting is knowing how to challenge a child with a goal without overwhelming him with the difficulties of the task. It seems this same difficulty persis...

I had lost my interest in pop culture. It’s cheap, it’s short-lived, it’s flavor-of-the-week. “What’s here today is gone tomorrow.” There won’t be “classic” radio stations playing our music in 50 years… Further, being in “Churchy” environments all my life, I’m tired of Christians spinning secular songs and “d...