Read & Reflect
Articles, reflections, news, and homilies — thoughtful Catholic content for the faithful, published regularly.
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Spirituality
Are We Bound by the Past? Generational Curses, Trauma, and the Freedom to Change
Early in my clinical training, one of my first patients told me something I have never forgotten: “my family is cursed—and so am I.” He described a history marked by abuse, addiction, and abandonment. Patterns that had repeated across generations. “It will always be like this,” he said, and so a lif...
Spirituality
Mass, Jazz, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and St. Jude
Nothing says jazz like New Orleans, and nothing says Catholic like the Mass. So, a jazz Mass on Good Shepherd Sunday in New Orleans at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and International St. Jude Shrine was a blessing on many levels. I had traveled from North Dakota with a son and his family. All That Ja...
Spirituality
The Neeza Powers Story and the Catholic Internet’s Fame Problem
A few months back I wrote a piece called “Influencers vs. Saints.” The whole point was simple. Teaching the Faith is not a hobby for the spiritually unformed. We are in a weird stretch of Church history where anyone with a smartphone can position themselves as an authority or teacher on the Catholic...
Spirituality
Marriage Is Not a Metaphor
I passed through the metal detector at the Las Vegas Airport without incident. No alarm complained about my passage. While waiting for my wife, who was the inconvenient recipient of a more thorough random check, I turned to the attendant and told her that I was surprised to pass through the metal...
Spirituality
The School of Love
We’re all here to learn how to love. Life is a school of love. The things that happen to you in life are meant to help you learn how to love. The people who cross your path in life are meant to help you learn how to love, and you’re meant to help them learn how to love, too. We’re all on a journey b...
Spirituality
Cooperation with Evil: Why the Distinctions Matter
The Servant and the Ladder Consider the old moral case condemned by Blessed Innocent XI (1676–1689). A servant helps his master climb through a window to commit a grave sexual crime, perhaps by holding the ladder, opening the door, or otherwise assisting him. Could the servant excuse himself by sayi...
Spirituality
God’s Ways Are So Much Higher
I sat next to my teenage daughter on a rainy afternoon in the Chick-fil-a drive-through, talking to her about the struggle and need to conform our will to God’s. I started with the theological explanations in a general way and then applied them to our own lives. Words then came out of my mouth that...
Spirituality
The Church as Our Consoling Mother
Amid a world ripe with uncertainty, fear, and sorrow, the Catholic Church stands as a loving and consoling mother, guiding her children toward the eternal embrace of Jesus Christ in heaven. The Catholic Church describes herself as a she. She is not merely an institution or an assembly of believers—s...
Spirituality
The Promise That Makes Christianity Unique: Sixth Sunday of Easter
This Sunday’s readings deepen our understanding of the mystery of Easter: Christ rose from the dead to live His life again in us. Gospel (Read Jn. 14:15-21) Here we continue in Jesus’ Last Supper Discourse with the Twelve. He is speaking forthrightly to His friends about an imminent change in thei...
Spirituality
Overcoming Sexual Sin Through the Sorrowful Mysteries
After living in sexual sin most of my adolescent and adult life, everything changed with a visit to an Adoration Chapel. My past suddenly felt foreign, my desires shifted, and God gave me new strength. Learning the fruits of the Sorrowful Mysteries became the foundation of my new path. Meditating on...
Spirituality
Witnesses to Faith: 5 Inspiring Mother’s Day Stories
When I was a teenager, my mom received a thyroid cancer diagnosis. This moment was particularly difficult for her because, when she was 15, cancer had claimed the life of her own mother. She told me later that getting cancer when my sister and I were kids was her worst nightmare. Originally from Cub...