Any woman who’s ever been visibly pregnant knows that her baby bump is an invitation. Whether she likes it or not, friends and strangers alike regard the bump as a signal. It alters the laws of social interaction, eliminating the concept of personal space surrounding the protruding area. The bump also elicits a flood of…
The celebration of the Eucharist is the greatest miracle on earth. For parents of little kids, it can also be one of the most stressful! Of course, taking children to Mass is incredibly important and meaningful, but it hardly feels that way when yours is the child crying, laughing, screaming, or just generally being a…
Continue reading ➞ 30+ Ways Parents Can Make Mass Less Stressful
It was the middle of the night when I drove myself to the emergency room. My lungs were burning and I had coughed up a bit of blood. I tried to keep myself calm, to avoid panicking prematurely. If it was what I thought it was, there was a very good chance that I could…
Continue reading ➞ What I’ve Learned from Becoming a Stay-at-Home Mom
I stumbled over the toys strewn across the living room floor before sneaking into my daughter’s dark room to kiss her goodnight. I had looked forward to this night “off” all week, but now that it was over, I found myself coveting missed bedtime cuddles. I crept back out to the living room and collapsed…
Continue reading ➞ 5 Ways Ignatian Wisdom Can Help You Cultivate Work/Life Balance
Mere moments on Twitter are enough to alert us that our culture is plagued with demons. We live in a culture that responds to polarized politics and social values with contempt and hateful accusations that serve only to drive us further from one another, rather than seeking common ground. Even voices claiming to speak for…
Continue reading ➞ Mercy for the Outcast: The Story God Wants Told
I found myself crying in the dressing room. All I wanted was to find one thing I felt beautiful in, one thing that I could slip into and become that confident woman who used to lure her husband with a pair of stilettos and a bat of her lashes. Now, the mascara from those lashes was…
Prayer through writing is a favorite of the saints, and one of the ways God uses to capture our hearts. The intimacy expressed in writing like the Psalms and the Diary of St. Faustina inspires us. The Lord wants that kind of intimacy with you, too. Whether you've never written a prayer or you've been journaling for years, the tips below will invite you deeper. It's true that we can't make prayer happen; prayer is the work of the Holy Spirit in our souls. But that fact doesn't mean that we don't have any responsibility when it comes to prayer! While God is the one who plants the seeds in our hearts, we can till the soil of our lives, cultivating more fertile ground for his love to grow and flourish. By taking these small steps, we can create space within ourselves to be more open to the promptings of the Spirit. The tips below work for journaling, and many of them will work for your other favorite forms of prayer as well.
