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This weekend, Blessed John Henry Newman will become Saint John Henry Newman, and few people will be happier than Sr. Mary Emmanuel Alves, FSP. She takes delight in reading—daily—from his work, and is ecstatic that his canonization will bring him into the hearts and minds of so many more people. “He is so precise and articulate,” she says. “His mind is brilliant—but the true brilliance is in it being understandable to the rest of us. That’s real brillianc...

St. Gianna Beretta Molla was a devoted pediatrician, wife, and mother. She loved and served God in the simplest, humblest gestures of her family and professional life, juggling—as do many women today—the demands of both worlds.Her example shows how keeping our relationship with God at the center of our lives allows grace to affect all our decisions, especially difficult ones. St. Gianna exemplifies how ordinary, daily experiences are important opportunities for evangelization. As a c...

Maybe you haven’t done it yet, or maybe you’ve done it a dozen times. Either way, the day you send your child off to school can be terrifying. Are they ready? Will they be safe? Will they be kind? Will they be loved?In stepping out on their own, a child enters a new space in their life in which their mother cannot participate. And that’s scary. The only way a mom can enter into that piece of her child’s life is if, in some way, her child is brave enough to trust her with ...

It’s easy, these days, to feel discouraged about a great many things, not least of which is our relationship with God. We move forward through the bustle of daily life, sometimes gracefully, but more often bouncing from one event or requirement or situation to the next like balls in a pinball machine. And when that happens, and we step back and look at our day-to-day lives, how can we not feel discouraged? How can we not feel that we don’t measure up to what God wants of us?“Th...

Maybe you’re a mom.Biological, adoptive, foster, spiritual, school-mom, hospital-mom, mother-figure… however your motherhood is expressed.Maybe you’re a mom.And maybe you remember taking your mom for granted.I know I did. I saw my mom work for me, care for me, fight for me, and love me every day. And sure, I was grateful, but I didn’t realize just how much it all cost her… or how much joy I brought her.And that’s the heart of a mother.We tend to think o...

A graduate school classmate of mine was once a greengrocer in a small English village. If you wanted fresh fruits and vegetables, and you happened to live in that village, you had to visit him. The problem was, he was usually cranky and sometimes downright mean. One day, three of his regular customers—all older, retired women—decided to do something about his behavior. They didn’t chew him out, and they didn’t decide to go to the next village to buy their produce. Instead...

In a letter to his friend Malcolm, C.S. Lewis writes: “Last week, while at prayer, I suddenly discovered—or felt as if I did—that I had really forgiven someone I have been trying to forgive for over thirty years. Trying, and praying that I might. When the thing actually happened, sudden as the longed-for cessation of one’s neighbor’s radio, my feeling was—But it’s so easy. Why didn’t you do it ages ago?” Why didn’t you do it ages a...

I was in my last year of college when I decided to enter the convent. As I told my friends, who were also in their early twenties, about how I felt that God was calling me, many of them had the same response: “But how do you know that it’s God calling you?”This is a question that so many of us have. We want to do God’s will, we want to hear his voice, but we don’t even know what we’re listening for. And it doesn’t have an easy answer. In fact, I still as...

It seems children never reach an age where we can stop worrying about them. We go from midnight fears as babies sleep, to cuts and bruises as kids play, to first boyfriend/girlfriend woes, to… well, you get the picture. My stepchildren are both in their twenties and there isn’t a day I don’t have some anxiety over the particulars of their lives, their safety, their future. We strive to be the best parents we can be, but in the small hours of the morning we wonder if we’r...