Category Archives: Catholic

Feb 20 2019

Second Chances

Click here for daily readings “We will know heartache, Prayers that don’t work, And times of bitter circumstances. But I still believe in second chances.” (Schwartz, CHILDREN OF EDEN) After an unsuccessful firs...

Feb 19 2019

The Leaven of Language

Click here for daily readings I love making artisan bread. It sounds fancy, tastes fantastic and yet is so simple to make. Every time, I wonder, “Why I don’t do this more often?” My basic recipe includes flour,...

Feb 18 2019

May Everything In Me Honor You

Click here for daily readings In our readings today, we look in on different people who present themselves before the Lord: Cain and Abel in the First Reading from Genesis, and, in the Gospel, the Pharisees who come forward and ...

Feb 16 2019

Who Should Eat?

Click here for daily readings I work for a Catholic publishing company, and so now in early February, we’re already preparing for Lent. That means, naturally, that it’s on my mind, and so I’ve turned my own att...

Feb 15 2019

Groaning and Healing

Click here for daily readings How difficult will your healing be? Will it cause Jesus to groan? Today’s Gospel is best understood in light of the First Reading from Genesis, in which we hear how the serpent tempted the wom...

Feb 14 2019

Leisure and Service

Click here for daily readings Today’s Gospel is the episode of Jesus healing the Gentile woman’s daughter who had an unclean spirit. It takes all of the predictable turns of Jesus’ encounters with the poor: the...

Feb 13 2019

The Breath of Life

Click here for daily readings In the first reading today we hear the second story of creation. Where the first story paints the big picture of creation, the second quickly focuses on mankind in the Garden of Eden. I want to high...

Feb 12 2019

Unwashed Hands, Unwashed Hair

Click here for daily readings One Christmas holiday several years ago, my oldest niece, a college student at the time, brought her boyfriend home to meet my parents, her grandparents. The first morning of their visit, Mark came ...

Feb 11 2019

Do Whatever He Tells You

Click here for daily readings Today, the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, when in 1858, the Blessed Mother appeared to a 14-year-old girl in Lourdes, France. Now, over 160 years later, millions of people trave...

Feb 09 2019

Our Good Shepherd

Click here for daily readings Today would have been my grandmother’s 85th birthday. She died 14 years ago when I was 10 but I still miss her fiercely every day. The first reading comes from the closing verses of Hebrews an...

Feb 08 2019

The Veil Between

Click here for daily readings Praying with today’s readings has me focusing on the letter from the Hebrews. Hospitality, prisoners, the ill-treated, married couples as well as the greedy, the immoral and adulterers–t...

Feb 07 2019

Go to Him

Click here for daily readings I found something extremely interesting in today’s Gospel. The first line says that Jesus summoned his disciples and then sent them out. A lot of the time, we may feel that we are being asked ...

Feb 06 2019

The Struggle is Real

Click here for daily readings Trying to write this post, the struggle is real. I’ve sat down to these readings and this Google Doc three, four, five times already and still find myself struggling to find the right words. T...

Feb 05 2019

Talitha Koum

Click here for daily readings “He took the child by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha koum,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise!’ The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately an...

Feb 04 2019

What Have You to do with Me?

Click here for daily readings There are 3 retellings of today’s Gospel; Matthew 8:28-34, Luke 8:26-39 and today’s reading, Mark 5:1-20. Nothing in the Bible is repeated without a purpose. Summarizing the three...

Feb 02 2019

Purified in Unity

Click here for daily readings Growing in faith can be pretty painful sometimes. Actually, it’s mostly painful. It’s not until we are transformed that we see why choosing to suffer with and for Christ is, in fact, the...

Feb 01 2019

As They Were Able to Understand it- Patience and Trust

Click here for daily readings Jesus often turns our human understanding on its head, as a reminder that God’s ways are far from our ways, and that reality resides far below superficial appearances. Grownups must become lik...

Jan 31 2019

Persecution- A Price Worth Paying

Click here for daily readings Three brightly colored threads have woven their way into my spiritual life in this past month. First thread. Persecution. News reports that Chinese Christians are bracing themselves for persecution....

Jan 30 2019

Sow What?

Click here for daily readings I recently reached the final page of a long, good book. I turned the back cover over and placed it on the coffee table with an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. As I returned it to its place on ...

Jan 29 2019

Family Tree

Click here for daily readings “Families are like branches on a tree. We grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one.” -Anonymous Today’s Gospel, once again, gives us the picture of Jesus preaching...