Moses, hearing the voice of the LORD from the burning bush, said to him, “When I go to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” God replied, “I am who am.” Then he added, “This is what you shall tell the children of Israel: I AM sent me to you.” God spoke further to Moses, “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this my title for all generations.” (Exodus 3:13-15) Today’s Old Testament reading is a gift,…

We all face the temptation to do “big things” in our lives--to accomplish important, lasting feats that leave a legacy. But maybe, as Dr. Tom Neal counsels, we should not look for God to do “big things” as much as allow him to make us magnanimous, “big souled”, in a life of stable commitments that make the ordinary radical.

The soul’s at fault, which ne’er escapes itself. —Horace One of the great scourges of our time is preoccupation. Every day, precious time is lost in ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. Our phones buzz with new calls, impatient texts, and pressing alerts about various and sundry facts like how far we’ve walked, the score of the game, and the timing of our next doctor’s appointment. Our schedules are designed to make us masters of efficiency. We pride ourselves on multitasking as we divide our attention between everything while truly attending to nothing. In making everything a priority we have, in effect, made nothing a priority. Eternal moments with God, our family and our friends—the very stuff of eulogy—are lost to meaningless and forgettable distraction.  In his masterwork Pensées, Blaise Pascal observed, “All the problems of men arises from one single fact,…

Throughout the history of the Church, men and women have emerged whose contributions have not only advanced the Church’s mission, but have also changed the course of civilization . . . These are the Pivotal Players. Bishop Barron has been retracing the lives of these incredible men and women since 2014 for his illuminative CATHOLICISM: The Pivotal Players documentary series. He is wrapping up filming this month, and you can go behind the scenes with him! Sign up to join Bishop Barron from July 15-24 as he journeys across Italy, Spain, and the Dominican Republic to film the final two installments of CATHOLICISM: The Pivotal Players. By signing up, you’ll receive daily videos and reflections from Bishop Barron and the production crew throughout their trip. Watch the trailer above to preview his upcoming filming trip and discover the final two protagonists of the CATHOLICISM: The Pivotal Players series. Then sign up for behind the…

God gave me parents more suited for heaven than this earth. —St. Thérèse of Lisieux I have been ministering to youth and young adults for more than a decade, and there seems to be overwhelming hopelessness. There are many reasons for this, but one of the most poignant comes shortly after asking them, “When is the first time you witnessed authentic love?” For many of them, it takes some time to respond to this, especially young adults. I’ve met people in their twenties who can very much attest to only recently seeing love lived well, embodied even. It’s one of the greatest compliments when some have said the first time they witnessed it was in my home, with my husband or with our children. It’s humiliating (in a good way) but also saddening to know that sources of authentic love—primarily…

Having made my first promises in 2002 (after three years of dallying), I will this upcoming September celebrate seventeen years as a fully professed Benedictine Oblate. I’m sure my Holy Father Saint Benedict is rolling his eyes, rather unimpressed. After all these years, I can’t say I’m an impressive Benedictine, and I am sure he asks from heaven, “Have you gotten that Rule down yet?” Erm, well, no, Father. Not yet. Especially not that part about receiving all guests as Christ. “Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say, ‘I came as a guest, and you received Me’” (Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 53). I became a Benedictine, rather than a Secular Franciscan, because my instincts have always been to the quiet side of life. I have always preferred prayerful contemplation and reading to almost anything else, and my instinct has always run…

About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star. —Annie Dillard I have to say that, for me, one of the bitterest curses of the smartphone is its power to distract from the beauty, surprises, and annoyances of the real world. As we look down at our glowing screens, mediating a self-selected (or ad-driven) reality, we will miss the unruly, unpredictable epiphanies of earth, sea, sky, or faces around us. And as we are repeatedly immersed in streaming Xfinity megabits per second, our minds dull, become impatient to the unhurried and un-swiped pace of life. I try hard not to hate on smartphones. They offer immense advantages, obviously,…

Ars Moriendi, or “The Art of Dying,” was an immensely popular and influential medieval text aimed at equipping the faithful for death and dying. It appeared by order of the Council of Constance sometime between 1414 and 1418, and although its author is anonymous, some scholars speculate that it was a Dominican friar. It is no surprise that the Church would focus on death-related themes at this time: one of the central pastoral preoccupations of the late medieval Church was preparing souls for death, which included saving them from damnation and shortening their stay in purgatory. To suppose that this focus on death was primarily driven by the effects of the bubonic plague is probably an oversimplification; it seems, rather, to be a foundational characteristic of medieval piety, resulting from a flourishing belief in the reality of life after death and the salvific efficacy of the sacraments. Hence, securing the…

From the earliest days of Christianity, it was believed that we become like who we worship. So for example, if we worship an authoritarian god, then we ourselves became authoritarian; if we worship a controlling god, then we became controlling ourselves; and so on. All the more reason then why the Bible places great importance on right worship and praise. The more we worship the true and living God, the more we become conformed to his image and likeness in which we were made. Here I briefly develop four aspects of the divine nature as revealed in Scripture and explore how worship of the God who is family, who is love, who is beauty and truth, leads us to become people of family, people of love, people of beauty, and people of truth. First, the God who is family. God is not solitude. He is a communion of persons of…

Besides admiring Jordan Peterson’s ability to guide and mentor people, especially young men, Bishop Barron, I believe, wishes to address, in a Balthasarian way, Jordan Peterson’s incomplete picture of man. Peterson is indebted to Carl Jung, a famous Swiss psychologist. Based on what I can surmise from his videos, Peterson is especially influenced by Jung’s work on the archetypes. My only familiarity with Jung is from college psychology courses, so I’m not an expert on Jung. However, I could not help but think of him, Peterson, and the reason for Bishop Barron’s engagement with Peterson when I read the following from another Swiss great, Hans Urs von Balthasar,  The archetype which, in Christ, came forth from God cannot, by definition, be unearthed from the depths of man, not even by the most penetrating analysis, neither the as a “lost image which must be…