Read & Reflect
Articles, reflections, news, and homilies — thoughtful Catholic content for the faithful, published regularly.
Spirituality
Spirituality
Learning to Surrender and Trust with St. John Henry Newman
Life is hard, and it doesn’t always go according to plan. Those moments can be filled with sweat, tears, blood, sleepless nights, anxiety, and even temptation away from hope and toward despair. While we can feel slight or crippling loneliness in such moments, the reality is that suffering, difficult...
Spirituality
Don’t Ignore Christ’s Invitation to You: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
In a parable this Sunday, Jesus describes a great wedding feast. Those who get invitations would be wise to ask: “What should I wear?” Gospel (Read Mt. 22:1-14) In the last of three parables in this portion of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus continues to describe the kingdom of God for “the chief priests an...
Spirituality
John Henry Newman’s Exceptional Path to Truth
What led one of the leading Anglicans of England, a brilliant theologian and Oxford graduate, to forsake Anglicanism for a belief that he had recently declared was led by the Antichrist pope? What occurred in his life during middle age that made him convert to the one belief that he had stood agains...
Spirituality
Cohabitation and the Unpopular Truth About Love and Law
In February 2020, Pamela Anderson separated from her movie mogul husband of 12-days, Jon Peters, declaring: “Life is a journey and love is a process. With that universal truth in mind, we have mutually decided to put off the formalization of our marriage certificate and put our faith in the process....
Spirituality
The Beauty of the Trinity: Part IV
In the previous article, we explored how Ancient Greece was favored by Heaven with the gift of philosophy, a tool through which men of good will and profound spirits intuited distant shades of the Holy Trinity. The Trinity reaches out to man the way the sunlight shines on windows; the clarity with w...
Spirituality
The Tower and the Sprinkler: What the Tiny Aspergillum Reveals About Christianity
Recently I found myself looking at photographs of the blessing at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. Now the world’s tallest church, its central Tower of Jesus Christ soars 172.5 meters into the sky, the result of more than 144 years of work. Antoni Gaudí called it a “temple of light and harmony” mea...
Spirituality
St. Carlo Acutis and Screen Time: Moving from Consumer to Builder
There are almost as many screen control apps as there are social media apps. You can buy a device that physically locks your phone and requires you to move to another room to unlock it. We scroll, we stream, and we worry about screen time. The lack of control creates jokes, but also a nagging sense...
Spirituality
The Necessity of Prayerful Meditation
A confrere once asked me to guess what he was thinking. When I replied that I had no idea what was on his mind, he smiled and replied, “Thoughts.” I knew then that I had fallen for his trick. What else would he be thinking if not thoughts? We have thoughts all the time. We have memories of the past,...
Spirituality
The Virtue Most Lacking in Our World Today
Few souls are truly humble. Wars, religious and political divisions, marital and family conflict, work tension, and character assassinations on social media do not begin in a vacuum. No, they begin in the heart…in a prideful one. A heart that seeks to rule and dominate others. A heart that seeks to...
Spirituality
7 Lessons from Blessed Fulton Sheen’s Beatification
My family and I were blessed to be in St. Louis for Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s beatification on September 24th. It was a great grace to participate, even in some small way, in this historic moment for the Catholic Church in America. Engaging in the Mass of Beatification, the press conference, and oth...
Spirituality
The Right Tools Make All the Difference, Part 3
This is the third installment in my series ruminating on the proper tools necessary for accomplishing objectives. This series emanates from my ongoing attempts to navigate family situations and ever-present household projects. Over many weeks and months, while moving through mundane tasks, I have po...
Spirituality
The Priest Who Told Inconvenient Truths
Fr. Drew,You heard my confession so kindly on March 5th. I drove to Missouri with a longing in my heart to go to church, and when I found you, it was like a miracle happened. Thank you for dropping what you were doing to hear me. I will always remember it. Please pray for me, Father. I started prayi...