As a sister, I find that when it comes to sharing the Gospel with family and friends, I often feel like I’m either a lightning rod for religious discussions (friendly or hostile in tone) or I am ignored as irrelevant to everyday life. I suspect that any practicing Catholic whose family members “aren’t religious” goes through this as well. How do we share the joy of the unconditional love of God with all of these expectations swirling around us? There are two fundamental choices or attitudes ...

No matter what your background, evangelizing friends and family is not an easy task. When engaging with loved ones who have fallen away from the Church, it is easy for us to focus on what they’re doing wrong or on what we’re doing wrong when we try to witness to them. But the more important thing is to concentrate on God’s desire for all of us to become saints. When we allow God to purify our inconsistencies that keep us from clearly communicating Jesus to our loved ones, then we will be able...

This past month we celebrated a number of the Church’s great people of prayer: Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Therese of Lisieux, and Blessed Timothy Giaccardo. They were all masters not only of liturgical prayer, but of personal prayer. What does that mean? Very simply put, it means they prayed from within their own lives. They prayed who they were, so to speak. Would we put ourselves in that category? Do you and I pray, as St Therese did, “our own little way?”  Let’s...

October is a lovely time in many parts of our country. Last week I had the chance to see fall in South Carolina: a still green landscape. In North Carolina’s mountains, reds, yellows and browns were appearing. In Boston more colors are displayed along our roadsides. A side street was covered with dry oak leaves—a sure sign of change in the air.Recently an on-line reader commented on an article I wrote. He recalled having met me in our Toronto bookstore about five years ago. To help himself thr...

             We, Synod Fathers, gathered in Rome together with Pope Francis in the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, greet all families of the different continents and in particular all who follow Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We admire and are grateful for the daily witness which you offer us and the world with your fidelity, faith, hope, and love.Each of us, pastors of the Church, grew up in a family, and we come from a great variety of backgrounds and experie...

I, no doubt as many of you, heard about the work of the Synod on the Family through glaring news headlines earlier this week. It was a couple of days before I located the document itself (in its unofficial translation) on the Vatican’s website. By the time I read it I had already been bombarded with bloggers and journalists that had either usurped the Synod document to confirm their agenda or rejected it outright as a sell-out.This morning I found the Message of the Synod Fathers issued at the ...

 In preparation for the Synod on the Family, Pope Francis made it clear that the Synod Fathers do not have to “fix” the family. Rather, he is concerned that the family, rather than being an object for concern and study, be the subject of evangelization.It took me awhile to get to the meaning of the phrase “subject of evangelization.” My memories of diagramming English sentences in school helped me. A subject, Sister taught us, is who or what is doing the acting and an object is who or what i...

A friend just called me to ask for prayers for a sister who is having problems with her teenage son. We talked about many things including the challenge of being there as family members struggle through issues and challenges in today’s society.  The fabric of our relationships stretch and strain to absorb so many challenges today—big and small! The good news of the Gospel is that being born into a family is being born into a community.Particularly as Catholics we have an inescapable connection...

 Have you ever been part of a discussion, knowing that you really didn’t know what you were talking about? Maybe you didn’t remember the relevant details, weren’t clear on definitions, were clueless as to the context of the situation…. That will be most people during the Synod in October, since the secular media frames popular discussion even of religious questions and events. Here’s basic information that will help you feel comfortable reading about the Synod and discussing it with others:...

Zélie Martin sat upright in the chair of the doctor’s office on that never-to-be-forgotten day in October 1876. She waited patiently for his verdict. Without raising his eyes, the doctor cleared his throat and began writing out a prescription. He said, “Madame, what you have is a tumor.”“Please be direct with me, doctor. What is the use of the prescription?”“Really, no use at all,” admitted the doctor.“Will an operation help me?”“I’m afraid not, Madame. We have diagnosed you too late....