Commentaries
Recharge your batteries before entering ‘ordinary time’
Maureen Pratt suggests that folding quality exercise, fellowship and spiritual pursuits into our days will be much more rejuvenating than the quantitative approach we employ during a jam-packed holiday season.
Do not fuel culture of the shocking
You Tube can offer tasteful music, tutorials and positive role models, but it can also show exploitative and unethical content, writes Maria-Pia Negro Chin. She urges users to share only the positive.
National Migration Week: A reminder of our duty to welcome the stranger
The Archbishop of San Francisco suggests three things Catholics should do this week about immigration: study church teaching on the topic, get to know an immigrant person, and pray for just reform of the system.
Discernment begins in the everyday
As the big question of "What should I do with my life?" grew bigger and no answer came, Anamaria Scaperlanda Biddick just let the question lie. Then she began to prioritize and to focus not on the distant future, but on today.
Where gladness and hunger meet is where God is calling you
There are many needs right in your own parish community. But instead of volunteering because you "have to," find a good fit that elicits a "deep sense of gladness," writes Effie Caldarola. Then run, don't walk, to make this commitment.
What we owe America’s farmworkers
Many Americans care about eating ethically (organic or free range) but do not think about the exploitation of the largely Latino farmworkers who are making their meals possible. Immigration reform would be huge step toward justice.
No selfies at the first Christmas, but a lesson for the new year
The artwork for Christmas focuses on the baby Jesus and his gaze outward to us, reminding Father Thomas Dailey that self-acceptance, not the affirmation of a cell phone selfie, is the real way to fulfillment.
The sacrifice at your hands
Laura Kelly Fanucci considers all the things that hands can do each day and how, as the prayer of the priest at Mass, says, offers our acceptable sacrifice to God. The hard work of our hands is the work of Christ.
Hubby needs wife’s support, but only gets constant criticism
Deacon Paul and Helen McBlain discuss in their "Marriage Matters" column how even a couple married for many years can experience insensitivity and a failure to communicate honestly.
Reasoning the way to the heart of the matter
While rational debate seems lost in our postmodern world, emotion and reason have always contended on moral issues, writes Richard Doerflinger. We must speak to both hearts and minds when advocating for life.