Ah, summertime! The season of vacations, a more relaxed pace of life, adventures, and warm weather. “Summertime and the livin’ is easy….” Summertime is such a wonderful time of year.
But our society is one in which most Americans take little to no vacation time. The drive to produce creates the sense that I always have…
I’m not a big, outdoorsy, guy. So, camping out was never something I really enjoyed, except for this one time. Me and my best friend, Mark, had a great “fort” in the woods near our apartment complex in Orlando when I was about 11 or 12. Being central Florida, the pine trees in these woods…
“Excellence” is a term we hear a lot in sports and in business. And that ties the word to an idea of achievement or progress.
But there is also an application of “excellence” when it comes to your relationship with God, and that has little to do with achievement or progress and everything to do with…
"Father is not a title!" By now my parishioners and catechumens are sick of hearing me say this. But I say it so much because there is real healing truth in this reality. The Church isn't some collection of "club members" or a "society for the preservation of baklava." No, the Church is a Family.…
The great American poet Henry David Thoreau said "If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself." I like that.
The truth is most of us who were raised with an expectation of decorum, dignity, and virtue were raised to avoid boasting as it…
Dear Faith Encouraged TV Friends and Supporters,
It's that time of year again, and I wanted to thank you for your faithful partnership with Faith Encouraged TV. We will have a 4th of July Homily, but then we will be away for several weeks and I ask your prayers.
Our Daily Devotionals will continue through the Summer…
"Now THAT's a real American!" The conversation centered, as all conversations seem to during an election year, on a particular political idea. The enthusiastic judge of what a "true American" really is was thrilled that the talking head on some 24-hour news station agreed with his idea in the first place. And, it was that…
Ouch! That hurt! It wouldn’t have hurt anymore if he’d actually hit me with his fists. He had confronted me with the reality that my words had so offended his friend that that friend didn’t want anything to do with God anymore. Oh No!
I was young and foolish (of course now I’m old and…
Weakness is something that I have a particular fear of experiencing. In fact, the older I get, the more I see my fear of appearing "weak" has shaped my choices, usually in an unhealthy way. When you fear being "weak" you find yourself hiding from real weaknesses that never get confronted and subsequently never get…
American author Laird Barron once said "Mom was all about hellfire and brimstone. Her Old Testament God was a colossal, ancient brute, a maelstrom of blood and fire, of appetite and wrath." Sounds familiar.
Our society has been shaped by a narrative, both subtle and overt, about how we think of God. And, for many…
