• Faith

    Three prayers to help you embrace “memento mori” this Halloween

    “Memento mori” is a term I’ve seen floating around the Catholic blogosphere (and Twitter especially) a lot in the past few years, but only recently have I really taken the time to look closer at the ancient tradition. The phrase is Latin, and translates to “remember your death.” Though it may seem morbid — the practice is anything but. Rather than obsessing over death to the point of despair, “memento mori” is an invitation to live our lives more intentionally, remembering that each moment is a gift that shouldn’t be wasted. Historically, “memento mori” was embraced through traditions like sleeping in caskets or kissing skulls. Today, there are a plethora…

  • Faith

    Five Ways to Celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday at Home

    I’ve heard about the devotion to Divine Mercy many times, but I’d never really taken the time to look into it deeply before — after all, our Church has so many devotions, and it seemed like just another one to add to my list. Now that I’ve done the research, however, I feel pretty passionate about celebrating this feast every year. Divine Mercy Sunday is just that awesome. Divine Mercy Sunday was instituted by Pope John Paul II, but it was an obscure Polish nun named St. Faustina Kowalska who would be the conduit for Jesus’s message of mercy to the world. The things Faustina wrote about in her journal…

  • Faith

    9 Holy Week Traditions You Can Do From Home

    This Lent has been a particularly unique one, namely because of the Coronavirus pandemic that has caused many dioceses to cancel Mass around the world.  It feels almost fitting that this should all happen during Lent — that we should be forced to fast from the keystone of our faith during the period in our liturgical year when fasting is most appropriate. These events have forced many of us as Catholics to think more deeply about the Mass, the Sacraments, and their importance in our lives. As with any fasting, our abstinence from the Eucharist hasn’t been easy — and we are still only in the first few weeks. During…

  • Faith

    Why Was Jesus Crucified?

    Near the midpoint of my freshman year in high school, my mom and I made a pilgrimage to Israel with a small group from our church. I still remember the experience vividly — even though it was over ten years ago now —  and the way that I imagine biblical events will be forever changed. Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the trip (for me personally) was our walk down the Via Dolorosa and subsequent time at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which marks the site of the crucifixion. I remember so much about that day. Each group of pilgrims were provided a large, wooden cross to carry along…

  • Faith

    The Truth Found in Fairytales

    Growing up, my deepest desire was for my life to be like one of the books I loved to read. I wanted it so badly that it hurt, deep down in my soul. I wanted adventure … the world-changing, life-altering, incredibly dangerous kind that I read about in my favorite fantasy novels. I wanted to go on great journeys, fight fierce battles, and ultimately save the world. Searching for this in real life always felt flat to me — two-dimensional and stale. Sure, I could travel — but that wasn’t really the same thing. I could dress up in costumes and go to conventions, or join some sort of role-playing…

  • A Sundry,  Faith

    Finding the Extraordinary in Ordinary Time

    The Christmas season is officially over, and as we reluctantly pack up our decorations and trudge forwards, back into the mundane of the everyday, the Church moves forward too. It is now that we leave a season of rejoicing, and enter back into Ordinary Time. I’ve always struggled with Ordinary Time. Shoved in between Christmas and Lent, Easter and Advent, Ordinary Time feels a bit like those final, stale pieces of a Thanksgiving feast that no one wants to eat. Nestled beside the emotional highs of suffering and joy, the mundane tends to lose its luster. After all, who wants to choose the ordinary? In actuality, most of our lives…

  • Faith

    The Story Begins with Christmas

    Our God is a storyteller. As a writer of stories myself, this fact has always made me feel like what I am doing actually matters — like every little word that I manage to jot down on a page really can change the world. After all, I am mimicking my Father’s own craft. Perhaps I am only creating pseudo-worlds, while his Word takes on Flesh, but there is something so beautiful in being able to reflect God’s own creative nature in such an intimate way. When you think about it, the story God has written is more bizarre, more fantastic, more mysterious, more mystical than any fantasy epic you could…