Year of Faith

My Top Three Take-Aways from the Year of Faith… where did you find meaning this year?

1. Never Forget: The Holy Spirit guides the Church, and the Papacy Wow! Who could have predicted this? The Catholic news story of the year was not only the Year of Faith but the resignation of the reigning pontiff, and the conclave to elect a new pope! We also had the first encyclical that was…

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The Power of the Vow, a blog post at “My Year of Faith”

A few years ago, at the urging of a kindly editor, I began writing a book I want to call The Power of the Vow. Don’t get exited. This is not my next project. I see it more as a work in progress for now, and thus far, the thing hasn’t materialized as a full…

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Props for the re-tooled Catholic Digest magazine

One of my favorite writing assignments during this Year of Faith, besides my columns online, has been the opportunity to write a 12-month series on the Catechism of the Catholic Church for Catholic Digest magazine. These are short 500-word digestible pieces designed to introduce readers to the benefits of becoming more familiar with Catechism, as…

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This makes me think… about finding hope in the desert of pessimism…

Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual “desertification”. In the [Second Vatican] Council’s time it was already possible from a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked like, but now we see it every day around us. This void has spread. But it is…

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Got Prayer? Here’s some advice on squeezing more prayer breaks into your day…

The Year of Faith is calling us to be more faithful. The three-fold call to know our faith, live our faith, and share our faith is what this year is all about. Here’s one of six suggestions on living our daily call to prayer, from my column at Patheos. Got prayer? You don’t need a…

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This makes me think… about the role of Christian friendships and community in the Year of Faith

[T]he Year of Faith is a path, an opportunity, that the Christian community offers to the many people who possess a longing for God and a profound desire to meet him again in their lives. It is essential, therefore, that believers recognize the responsibility to provide an authentic companionship of faith, to become a neighbor…

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This makes me think… it’s time to re-read the Documents of Vatican II…

[D]uring the [Second Vatican] Council there was an emotional tension as we faced the common task of making the truth and beauty of the faith shine out in our time, without sacrificing it to the demands of the present or leaving it tied to the past: the eternal presence of God resounds in the faith,…

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New Women Saints for the USA in the Year of Faith

Exciting developments in Rome Sunday as we continue to observe the Year of Faith! Two new women saints from the USA are named among seven new saints. First, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first woman saint who was a native American. Here’s a brief excerpt from Pope Benedict’s homily announcing her name: Last year, I profiled…

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This makes me think… about the new evangelization…

A few days before being elected as Pope, Benedict XVI had delivered a lecture at Subiaco on the condition of Europe. In his lucid analysis of the present time, he expressed himself, amongst other things, in these far-sighted words, which constitute a program for the new evangelizers: “What we need at this time of history…

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Among Women Podcast 147: Special Edition – Welcome to the Year of Faith

Welcome to the Year of Faith! This episode of the Among Women podcast is a Special Edition in which I suggest resources for the Year of Faith, and direct you to the many links that are available for our enrichment during this year. Read my blog post, “Welcome to the Year of Faith!” that is…

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