St. John Cassian is a saint worth knowing.  Of the ilk of the Desert Fighters (usually known as the Desert Fathers), he knows the daily and manly fighting it takes to overcome our enemies, which are not the myriad of challenges all around us now, but the enemies in our disordered passions and false loves.  For such foes we need the paradoxical mi...

“A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions.”   (CCC 1803) There is nothing more that I desire ...

People often ask me what the recovery process entails.  Especially when dealing with addiction to pornography, there is a desire to be able to recognize progress since it is such a difficult addiction.  I often describe recovery as a three-tiered process: sobriety, inner-healing, and transformation. Sobriety: Being sober means no longer usin...

It’s one thing to eliminate pornography from your life. It’s another to ensure that it doesn’t come back. Preventing future pornography use requires one to set clear boundaries. Having all Internet use monitored is one form of a boundary. There are many other boundaries that are helpful. To understand the importance of boundaries, we must fir...

“It’s no mistake” I said to Mike, “that every Catholic church has an image of St. Joseph up front.” Mike had come for confession and counseling over his failures as a husband and father. He had got caught up in the trap of pornography and ambition. He made some bad, short cut decisions. Stress built up and workaholism began to bite. Mi...