Five Ways to Maintain Hope

hope, sun, clouds

Today I’m following up on my last post about the priest who committed suicide in the rectory a block down the street from my house. In my post I mentioned that, in my view, this priest (and anyone else who has committed suicide) must have lost all hope. To me, a person can only take his or her own life if steeped in utter hopelessness. (more…)

The Five Things that Most Impress Me about Pope Francis

Pope Francis portrait thumbnail.CNS Photo/Paul Haring.

Since his election to the papacy on March 13, 2013, I’ve been following Pope Francis – at times actively, and at times passively, but always keeping me eye on him via the Catholic newspapers, Internet sites, and Vaticanist news bulletins. Although I was initially skeptical about what kind of pope Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio would become, I now find myself liking what I see. And hear.

I appreciate his simplicity and directness, and I appreciate even more that he practices what he preaches. He’s asked the Church to pare down, be attentive to the needs of those (more…)

The Most Effective Time Management

wasted time

My Facebook status said, “Having the house all to myself while hubby is at work and #3 Son is away at camp was a great idea! For the first twelve hours.”

That’s fairly accurate, except that I had already been feeling as though I’d had enough as I entered the 4th hour.

For years, I’d griped about not having enough time to myself, not having enough peace and quiet, not having the ability to decide what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it. Now that (more…)

The Value of the Nuptial Mass

File:Wedding rings.jpg

When doing live radio, it can happen that things don’t come out exactly as we intended them to and time whips by so fast that we don’t get the chance to clarify before the end of the show.

That happened to me today on EWTN Radio’s “At Home with Jim & Joy” with hosts Jim and Joy Pinto. We were chatting about marriage and what parents should and should not do in (more…)