One of the most noticeable changes in the liturgical calendar following the Second Vatican Council was the removal of the pre-lenten season of Septuagesima. This short season consisting of only three Sundays - Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima - served a preparatory function as the Church embarked on the penances of Lent. The Gloria cease...

How can anyone know God? How can we plumb the depths or reach the heights of the Infinite? How do we respond to statements like, “See, God is great beyond our knowledge, the number of his years past searching out,” (Job 36:26)? To me, these types of questions and ideas can seem like the start of an intellectual exercise through which one can fi...

The beginning of fall marks the end of the summer wedding season, and as I see the photos of friends, acquaintances, and distant family members getting married, I can’t help but reflect on the classic Catholic wedding photo. The young couple is standing together looking overjoyed at the foot of the altar framed by decoration and bright colors. Th...

The other day I was stuck in traffic on the highway and I happened to look down at the grass growing in the median between the two sides of the highway. The beauty of the living grass softly swaying in the wind brushed a chord in my soul. This was not any special grass, it wasn’t even particularly aesthetically pleasing, it was just there, and al...

God created us to give Him glory, which we do by sharing in His own happiness. The Catechism describes this reality in its opening line: “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.” The Baltimore Catechism captured the question “why did God make me?...

Lent began originally as an intense preparation of prayer and fasting preceding baptism at the Easter Vigil. Eventually the entire Church joined in this period of preparation, renewing one’s baptismal vows and expressing the need for constant conversion. If you want to know what Lent was like originally, ironically we can look to Ramadan, ...

Let’s begin this article with a controversial statement: Toxic masculinity is real and has been since near the beginning of human existence. (Note: so too has toxic femininity, but it’s not the topic of this article.)  Many men hate this indictment and resist it.  After all, who wants to be painted with the same broad brush that touches sexua...

I recently had a priest friend visit my farm to help me eat a pig.  He had, in fact, wanted to be there “for the bullet”, meaning when I began what is politely and (I think) cruelly called “processing”.  “Processing” is thoroughly modernist farm-speak that helps people cope with the reality that I am shooting a small bullet into the p...

Forgiveness is absolutely central to our faith.  Most of us know this and simply take it as a given.  But we must remember that forgiveness is not commonplace.  Many who have been wronged bear a heavy burden of bitterness, and those who have wronged them bear a crippling sense of shame.  At root, this is a spiritual problem, and it’s a proble...

I don’t like to read long blog posts. The good news is that means I typically don’t like writing long blog posts either. This one, therefore, will be an exercise in brevity. Our lives are filled with amazing tools, gadgets, and conveniences, yet we are losing our souls. My thought on why: we don’t have enough men proclaiming truth, beau...