Daily Bread
My friend and I were supposed to be strategizing, but we found ourselves commiserating. Working wives and moms of many, we had, in the past, diligently organized our little blocks of time. On paper, everything lined up in tiny, tidy squares. A time for this, a time...
The Necessary Luxury of Slow
“Mom, I never see you eat.” My teenager leaned against the kitchen table and looked at me with concern. I tried to laugh it off. After all, the extra 15 pounds I was carrying around indicated otherwise. “Oh, I eat,” I assured him. “You just don’t see me.”...
Advent: A Sacred Ache
The baby’s wail rang through the church, reverberating through the air, an audible avalanche. It shattered the silence after communion with such piercing power I was momentarily stunned. The mother had already retreated to the back of the building—no doubt...
A Thousand Times a Day: Distractions in Life and Prayer
“I don’t know if I have been able to write ten lines without being disturbed…I am not telling any lies when I say that I am writing practically nothing,” lamented (laughed?) St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She had snuck out to the convent garden to write, hoping to make...
How to Find A Spiritual Director
“Do you seriously wish to travel the road to devotion? If so, look for a good man to guide and lead you.” — St. Francis de Sales Let’s just say it right off the bat: finding a good spiritual director is not easy. However, for those serious about advancing in...
Your ‘Yes’ is Precious: Three Questions for a New Season
My husband, riffling through the junk drawer, held up a fistful of keys. “Don’t you think it’s time you returned these to the parish?” “I forgot about those,” I said thoughtfully as I put my coffee in the microwave for the third time that morning. There were many...
“Courage, Dear Heart”: Discern and then Do
I’d prayed. Thought. Asked for advice. Researched. Considered. Reconsidered. My anxieties and misgivings (you can’t do this; you’ll fail and everyone will see you fail; this will take too much time away from your family) pushed against the growing sense that this was...
What if it’s Wonderful?
If there’s one virtue I struggle with, it would be hope. In part because of my melancholic nature, my inner pendulum swings more toward pessimism. I see the difficulties before they arise, sigh with the weight of anticipated woes, expect disappointment around every...
For Mother Angelica’s 100th: Big Dreams Have Small Beginnings
It’s Mother Angelica’s birthday today, April 20. She was born 100 years ago—grew up in a broken home, struggled with various painful illnesses, and was desperately poor. When I read her biography by Raymond Arroyo years ago, I was struck by the resilience of the...
“I Beg the Lord to Help Me Understand His Great Mercy”: St. Gianna’s Retreat Resolutions
St. Gianna Molla is a woman recognized for her great final act of generosity to life. During her fourth pregnancy, when a tumor was found to be pressing on her uterus, she opted for the surgery that put her at greater risk but was the only choice in which her baby...
The Slow Years: Productive vs. Fruitful
We were wrapping up the Q&A session after my talk at an online writer’s conference. The recording had already stopped and I relaxed and stretched my legs under my desk as the moderator asked me to field a final question. It was one I’m asked frequently: How do you...
Parenting is a Purgative Way
A few weeks ago, in a rare burst of organizational energy, I was cleaning out some files when I came across a folder that hadn’t been touched in…I don’t know how long. Before we moved ten years ago, for sure, and probably long before that. The faded purple...
On Creative Work: Resistance and Retaliation
I glance at the computer and hesitate. The cursor is blinking at me, waiting and wordless. A few minutes later, rather than writing, I find myself sorting socks or organizing a drawer. The refrigerator is being cleaned out and the shelves straightened. Time—which I...
One-Time Spiritual Direction in a Retreat Setting
I dropped my bags off in my room and toured the retreat center alone after my late arrival, tired but grateful for the chance to spend several days with 70 women who had set their weekend aside to deepen their relationship with the Lord. I knew it would be far...
Five Fool-Proof Ways to Sabotage Your Prayer Life
1. Be sure to bite off more than you can chew. If you are not a morning person and are not used to getting up early, set your alarm for 4 AM and expect to rise before the sun with a song in your heart. If you’ve only been praying for a few minutes each day, resolve...
And Nothing Would Again be Casual or Small
We were lingering over the lasagna, enjoying a casual dinner after the women’s conference this weekend. Our beloved Bishop Olmsted, sitting to my right, was listening attentively to one of the volunteers describe her devotion to the Carmelite saints. She shared...
Things I’ve Learned in Spiritual Direction, Part 3: The Lies We Listen To
“It’s happening again,” I say, shaking my head as if to clear it. It’s been a good meeting with my spiritual director so far—lots of clarity, signs of hope, determination to continue to seek and love God’s will in my life. But then I notice a shift in my mind, as...
July 26, 1942
You couldn’t say it was an ordinary Sunday that day—after all, the Nazi occupation had ravaged a shell-shocked Holland and nothing was the same. Nothing would ever be the same. But the Mass would have been the anchor for Dutch Catholics, an eternal constant in a...
Things I’ve learned in Spiritual Direction, Part 2: Stay with the Spirit
There’s a certain timelessness we can feel while in conversation about eternal things: God, our soul, and the revelation of the work the Lord is doing to draw us ever closer to Him. As if everything else is suspended for a few moments and we hang up high from a...
Things I’ve Learned in Spiritual Direction, Part 1: Notice What Draws You
After several years of regular spiritual direction, I’ve come more and more to realize the beauty of this relationship with someone which consistently serves to strengthen and deepen my own relationship with God. I’ve grown so much from the grace of accountability, of...
Wait For It
For the longest time, it looked like absolutely nothing was happening. When St. Joseph’s Catholic Church tragically burned down over a year ago, the land was cleared and left to wait. Every so often, I’d drive by, the empty space on the parish grounds signaling a...
Scroll, Swipe, Click: What’s Your “Parlor”?
Problems in the Parlor She was a young nun who loved the Lord and spoke of Him passionately and often, edifying others who saw in her the beginnings of the saint she would become. But St. Teresa of Avila admits early in her biography that she had a major fault: she...
The God Who Sees Me
The desert sun burned her face, the hot sand tore at her tired feet. She staggered toward Egypt, hurt and angry, and, let’s face it, not altogether innocent. And she had probably never felt more alone. In that moment of quiet desperation, God found her. Her name was...
St. Michael, Be Our Protection
On this feast of the Archangels, I wanted to share a short but incredibly moving and powerful poem from a Carmelite nun, St. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, also known by her baptismal name, Jessica Powers. May St. Michael defend and protect innocent and defenseless life...
A Special Power of Loving: Mother Teresa’s Letter on Women
The lines of division in our country and in the world are marked and clear and widening by the hour. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse, therefore choose life, that you and your...
The Heart was Alive: A Eucharistic Miracle
When I was a little girl, my family would say the rosary every night before an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I’d look at that luminous Heart, aglow, and the long fingers of Our Lord solemnly pulling back the folds of his robe to reveal its fire and its wounds....
The Beautiful Story Behind the Litany of Trust
We were passed small folded cards at the start of a diocesan pro-life meeting a few years ago, and we opened them and began to pray The Litany of Trust for the first time. Immediately I knew this prayer was inspired. Incredibly simple, but powerful. I turned the...
Closest Thing to the Cloister: Quarantine Advice from the Convent
This is the closest thing I’ll ever get to living the cloistered life, I thought, as I tossed out the school calendar and basketball season schedules. I put backpacks and lunchboxes in storage. I erased my oldest’s commencement exercises off the square in April. I...
Is this Lent a Custom Made Cross?
Imagine the Lord carving a cross just for you–gently, lovingly, bent over his workbench, holding you in his mind, in existence, in love. Knowing exactly what you need for holiness, exactly how much you can carry, the curve of your brokenness, the shape of your sin,...
Live in the Moment or Go Crazy
We have never needed the message in this video (below) more. Our nation-and the world-are slowly grinding to a standstill in the wake of a virus we were barely aware of a few weeks ago. How quickly things change...it wasn't part of my 'plan' this year to have my kids...
St. Monica: Carrying the Family Cross
The canonized women who are mothers add to our altars a special kind of incense – a two-fold fragrance of motherhood, both natural and spiritual. The very definition of their sainthood reveals that the life of the soul was sacrosanct to them and that while they...
From Discipleship into Relationship: A Talk at the 2019 Catechetical Congress
There has been a lot buzz in the Church over the last few years about thresholds of conversion, how to lead others over the steps toward intentional discipleship and that ‘drop your nets’ moment of saying "Yes, Lord. I'm in. I believe in you, I want to follow you,...
“Because I Know We are One”: Helen Alvaré on Hope for a Church in Crisis
When I was invited to attend the FOCUS conference, SLS20: "Made for Mission" in Phoenix Dec 30-Jan 3, I jumped at the chance. The prior year's event, SEEK2019, had been attended by some friends who declared it life-changing. And to have it in my backyard? Count me...
For You are My Father: Prayer of Abandonment
On the day my parents brought me home from the hospital, my Dad took a picture of me on their doorstep as if I had been left there for them to find. That oblivious little bundle in the yellow crocheted blanket is me. (My mother wants me to make sure that all of you...
Nothing Comes From Nothing
What a tremendously glorious thing is the Economy of God! There is nothing He hasn't created, planned, ordained or allowed that isn't meant for our salvation, sanctification, and union with Him. Like Joseph overseeing the storehouses in Egypt, God's wisdom has...
Small in Stature, Great in Holiness: St. Rita of Cascia
It was the year 1450, and it the first Holy Year declared in the Church. Lay and religious pilgrims joyfully converged upon Rome – including a band of Augustinian nuns from Cascia, in the region of Umbria in central Italy known for its saints, as the birthplace of...
Best Quote of St. John Henry Newman
I love the saints - hang out here at all, and you'll inevitably see evidence. This is why I'm always a little giddy when the Church adds a few more watts to her spiritual sky and makes our earthly pilgrimage just a bit brighter. They light the way, they set the...
Don’t Break the Bowl: Straight Talk for a Busy Soul
We pulled into the school parking lot and swung open our van doors to let in the kids pile in, fresh from school and ready for snacks, sports practices, and all the activities of each evening. My friend smiled as they scurried around us, backpacks and water bottles...
Prophet of Everyday Holiness: St. Josemaría Escrivá
The young Spanish priest had felt in his prayer an unidentified urging for several years, a vague call, a sense of something more. On October 2, 1928, while pondering some notes in his journal, Fr. Josemaría Escrivá suddenly saw it: the ‘call within a call’ such as...
Burning Churches: A Reminder of What Remains
“Mommy, why are two churches burning?” His little face looked up at mine, hair tousled, eyes troubled. He was thinking of the photos he had seen of the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He was thinking also of our neighborhood church of St. Joseph, which had...
When God Says, “Wait.”
It was almost exactly one year ago when I cried out in prayer to God: "I can't do this anymore!" I remember I was sitting on the edge of the couch, clutching the cushions. Life felt so overwhelming and I had reached a physical and emotional, and I suppose spiritual,...
A Scattered Soul: Distractions in Prayer
Some time ago at Sunday Mass, I looked up to see a woman texting on her phone in line for Holy Communion. My heart stopped. It was the most blatant, shocking show of distraction I’d ever seen. To be so close to Jesus, to be approaching this intimate moment of...
Thy Face is My Fatherland: The Gaze of God
My son Daniel was just a small baby when we flew out to visit family in Wisconsin. Strapped in his car seat on the plane, completely unaware of where I was taking him, he was obligingly content throughout the flight. Then, as we began our descent, there was sudden...
The Four Temperaments
Know Thyself, and thy faults, and thus live. - St. Augustine My mother had me pegged at a very young age. I remember walking into her bedroom as she put down the book Transformed Temperaments by Tim LaHaye and smiled at twelve-year-old me. “You,”...
The Best Prayer for a Busy Day
On a typical night, I’ll tumble into bed and toss up a tired prayer or two, mentally reviewing my day from God’s perspective. I can be tempted to discouragement as I look back over what can sometimes seem like missed opportunities. As much as I’d like to remain...
A Woman for All Seasons: St. Frances of Rome
If you are busy juggling family, friends, work, and prayer, trying to balance works of mercy with your daily duty, prayer time with household chores, and marriage with ministry, then let today’s saint be an inspiration. There are few who can’t relate to her in some...
The One Great Thing to Love on Earth
Although I've always been an avid reader, with stacks of books on my desk, beside my bed, and on overflowing shelves around the house, I didn't read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy until I was an adult. (Now my sixth grader is reading...
Then Sings My Soul: The Power of Beautiful Worship
The last note of the organ lingered like the cloud incense in the air. I knelt for a quick thanksgiving as parishioners gathered their things and began to leave the pews at the end of the Sunday Mass. Then there was a gentle tap on my shoulder. “Excuse me,” the...
Small Heralds of the Dawn: The Children Saints of Fatima
Just two years ago, two of the young visionaries of Fatima were added to the living links in the Church’s rosary of Saints. In front of half a million pilgrims, and with many of us watching from home, Pope Francis canonized Jacinta and Francisco Marto on May 13,...
Chiara Corbella Petrillo: Shining A Light on the Value of Life
I love the saints. I love that the Church gives them to us, raises them up so that we can see what holiness looks like lived out in this life. I love that they point to something better, brighter. What we see in shadows, little hints in the sacrament of the every day,...
St. Thérèse was a Prima Ballerina
Recently I was listening to an Avila Institute class lecture. Professor Hollcraft’s comments on fortitude in the everyday situations and decisions of our lives solidified something which struck me deeply a few years ago. My friend was giving a talk about the...
Love Has No Limitations: The Life of Léonie Martin, Sister of the Little Flower
No family is perfect. Well, maybe one. But Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are definitely the exception. Even in the best of homes, even when the parents are canonized together and a child becomes one of the most beloved saints of all time, there can be deep hurt. ...
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini: “Not to the East, But to the West”
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini must have been a flexible soul. Several times in her life, God asked her to pivot in her plans and follow him in directions she had not thought to discern. But through her obedience, the Lord did amazing things - and now she is...
The Gift of Availability
I sat at the kitchen counter, twirling a pen, my calendar open before me. I was determined to find a way to create some more order to my time and my life. In the early days of finally having all six of my children in school, I had already noticed that rather than...
“The World Is Rotten Because of Silence”
The stories in the Catholic world these days, stories of abuse, cover-ups, and promotion of predators have me profoundly sad. The word “silence” has me angry. I want to tell a story, which is still a mystery to me, but one which I find I cannot stop thinking...
My Father’s House: On the Sacredness of Our Places and Spaces
We pulled up to my childhood home in the middle of the night, the Wisconsin green shrouded in darkness. I immediately sensed all the summers of my childhood in the dim stillness as the screen door squeaked shut behind us. Whispering, I led five of my...
Living the Hidden Years
Liturgically, we’re taking a brief breath in ordinary time. We’ve lived the long wait of Advent, and Christmas has been celebrated and it’s trappings stored away - nativity sets snuggled in attic alcoves and ornaments stacked in garage bins. I’m still polishing off...
Fruit that Endures
The slick website invited me to take a productivity assessment. This should be interesting, I thought, scanning the piles of papers, laundry and dishes stacked around me. Let’s see how productive I am. Ten minutes later, I had my answer. Turns out I’m “not quite a...
Martha’s Many Things
I am a Mary at heart, a Martha by trade. Today's feast of St. Martha has me thinking of both of them and the tug within each of us: the longing for intimacy with God and the pressing needs of life. I don't need to repeat the story of the two sisters. It can even be...
He Speaks into Our Silence
I ran into a friend recently, another mom with lots of littles, at an indoor trampoline park. It was a sizzling summer day in Phoenix and we'd both reluctantly shelled out too much money for a few hours of much-needed activity for the kids. The place was loud. As...
Today, Little Boy, I Choose You
Life is so very busy right now, dizzying in its demands. The days rush by, a whirlwind of laundry, housework, paperwork, appointments, driving, cooking, cleaning, studying, working, parenting, praying. Each day orchestrating this family of eight is its own little...
New Every Morning
It is a new calendar year, with new resolutions and new ambitious goals. We crack open delightfully empty new planners, begin hopeful new journals, form resolute new budgets, buy new gym memberships, and have jogging shorts with the tags still on. Starting now, we...
Reflections on Into the Deep: Finding Peace Through Prayer
Here we go again. Another new calendar year, another gloriously empty planner, another fresh start. Another chance to count our calories and our steps, watch our words, manage our time, balance our budgets. It's our annual self-check-up. What did we do well last...
Advent -Hushing our Hurried Hearts
Now that we've got Thanksgiving under our (slightly loosened) belts, it's time to turn our attention to something - new. While to our worldly senses, the year is winding down with a celebratory month of shopping, singing, decorating, and baking, our liturgical year...
Heaven Begins Now: Elizabeth of the Trinity
Next month the Catholic galaxy will become a little brighter as the Church receives a new cluster of saints. Among the holy handful will be just one woman, a French Carmelite considered by Pope Saint John Paul II to be one the most influential mystics of his...
A Mom on Mount Carmel
I took a fascinating online class on the nature of Mystical Theology in the Church this Spring. What precious time I could carve out from my busy life as a mom six, I spent delving into the works of St. John of the Cross and meeting a new friend, a little Carmelite...
What Little Boys Are Made Of
My husband are I are raising six lively children; two-thirds of which are boys. (Come March, one will be a man...but let's not think about that just yet. Oy vey.) And the boys are bookends of the bunch. Which means that for almost eighteen years now, I've been...
Everyday Mercies
"The theme is Mercy," she said. "Our scripture is, 'He crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.' But what you want to talk about is up to you; just keep it to about 25 or 35 minutes." I thanked the organizer of the woman's conference and hung up the phone. I was...
“The 33”: Of Men and Miracles
Last weekend my husband and I sneaked out for a rare evening to ourselves. I had been waiting for "The 33" to come to theaters; it was a familiar storyline to me - and to many - and I was anxious to see it dramatized. My Dad had providentially been working on...
For the Woman Who Wasn’t There: To All the Moms who Watched Philly From Afar
When we welcomed Pope Francis into our country, I'm sure many of you moms, like me, dreamt of traveling to be with the crowds who were there to celebrate, listen, and pray with the pontiff. Of course, for most of us, it never got further than a fleeting, wishful...
Our Lady of Sorrows is the Cause of Our Joy
This week we'll celebrate two important feasts: the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, on September 14, and the following day, September 15, we'll remember Our Lady of Sorrows. Two days linked forever in meaning, inseparable, poignant. September 15 also happens to be my...
A Pope Nails Parenthood: “The Kingdom of Irrationality”
"Nooooooo!" I couldn't help but cry out as the three-year-old began to pour the container of salt - the giant Costco container of salt, moreover - all over the kitchen floor. He smiled gleefully despite my dismay, then scurried off as his older brother and sister...
Memoirs of a Happy Failure: A Conversation with Alice von Hildebrand
Last fall I picked up a book in our parish bookstore - and couldn't put it down. Alice von Hildebrand's Memoirs of a Happy Failure captured me with it's title. You see, it promised a glimpse into the life of a woman I had admired since encountering her work as a...
Missionaries into the Hearts of Our Families
A recent Friday morning found me at the funeral Mass for a friend's mother, and I had to take the two youngest with me. We lasted only a few minutes in the main church. My three year old, his toddler voice echoing during the quiet and solemn service, sent us into...
Nesting near the tabernacle
This spring saw our backyard filled with new life: families of quail scurrying across the grass, baby doves peeking out from the eaves of our patio, and a special surprise: a little killdeer mother, nesting on the ground in a shallow depression in the gravel out near...
Running to the Banquet: Communions and Communism
The word Eucharist, which holds so much weight and significance to our faith, is from the Greek translation of the Jewish word berakah which means "giving thanks to God." Each time the Church spreads out her banquet before us, an eternal Thanksgiving feast, I am...
A Martyrdom of Love
Edited to note that Archbishop Oscar Romero was canonized, along with Pope Paul VI (pictured with him above) in Rome in October 2018. In January this year, I sat in my kitchen early one morning, bleary-eyed after a fractured night's sleep. (And I'm using the term...
St. Joseph’s Hands
Nine years ago I went for a walk with Alice von Hildebrand. The lovely Catholic philosopher and theologian had come into Phoenix to give a talk on God's love, and desiring to enjoy the weather and the views around Camelback mountain, she found me a willing companion....