Difficulty Level: You have read Job, haven’t you?

An update last month on my conversion process came as I was making my way through a dark period to what I thought was that well known “light at the end of …

Fiat Voluntas Tua

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Of the Seven Petitions in the Our Father, it this …

Temples of the Holy Spirit

When we think of a temple in its most common, worldly form, what images come to mind? If you’re at all like me, the first response of imagination is to …

Between Court and Church: Opportunities Lost and Found

Since the announcement of the Supreme Court ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges, I’ve been reading a lot of commentary and doing a lot more thinking. There’s plenty of noise on this topic already and you’re …

The Problem of Pluralism

On a (purportedly Catholic-specific) discussion board I’m taking part in, someone posted a comment that ended, “…What logical person would argue [over] the necessity of the Ten Commandants or similar …

Faith and Historical Criticism

This week, one of the Catechist Formation classes I’m taking has been talking about the Four-Source Theory and the Synoptic Problem. Called to reflect on what we’d learned, I wrote …

Quomodo Veni Huc

Well it ain’t exactly a Confessions or Seven Storey Mountain but it is an autobiographical reflection that, rather surprisingly, ends [spoiler alert] in a Catholic Church. Every time I try to figure out how I came …

Eulogy for my Grandfather

Delivered on 6 October 2012 There is not time, nor is this the place or occasion, to capture the whole life of Walter LB. All those stories we carry with …

A Nonet of Heroic Couplets from a Disheartened Convert

I call thee, Lord: make haste and harden steel, To help the cause I frame in this appeal. For trampled do I find my soul, and tossed, Surrounded, threatened, faltering and lost. …

Explaining Confession Existentially

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, I find that a useful way into an explanation of Penance and Reconciliation begins far from any ideas of sacrament or church or even …