Archive
Categories
Full Post List
Feb 17, 2025: Shuffling Our new house has a full basement, about a third of which is unfinished storage space. In the past, Alison and I’s household storage has been limited …
Feb 10, 2025: Tomorrow Never Comes I spent a lot of time thinking about the future. My brain is wired for efficiency, so no matter the task or topic, it’s constantly trying to optimize. …
Feb 3, 2025: Blending We’re back from our annual family ski vacation, and had another successful year. Though more skiing is in our future, a unique aspect of our …
Jan 27, 2025: Flipping Switches I remember exactly how I felt. It was the fall of 2018 and two years into our new life out west, I was at my (then) highest weight ever. Alison and I …
Jan 20, 2025: A Full Day When I think about my ideal day, every minute is scheduled out. I have books I want to read, news articles to follow, workouts to complete, prayers to …
Jan 13, 2025: Some Better Thing We’re two weeks into the new year, and the grand designs that many of us made are at risk of faltering. One of the best ways that we can spend our …
Jan 6, 2025: Jubilee It’s been 25 years since the Catholic Church last celebrated the Jubilee. I was in middle school in 2000, but I still remember the special events that …
Dec 30, 2024: Swept to Safety In the entirely of salvation history, there are stories, major and minor, that all play their part. Every episode that made its way into the Bible …
Dec 23, 2024: The Great I Am Born on Christmas Day is the King of Kings. He arrived in a damp, cold, dark place, in some cave in the backwater of a once-great kingdom, to a people …
Dec 16, 2024: Rethinking Everything The new year is just around the corner. In just over two weeks, 2024 will be in the books and a fresh new 2025 will be staring us down. Perhaps …
Dec 9, 2024: Nothing to Do Last weekend, I drove solo with my two oldest children across the country. There was plenty of screen time, but perhaps more surprisingly, there was a …
Dec 2, 2024: Arrival With Thanksgiving behind us, we’ve entered into what feels like the busiest time of the year. In just four weeks, Christmas morning will be here, …
Nov 25, 2024: Gratitude And just like that, the end of 2024 is upon us. We celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, and many of us will be traveling across town or across the …
Nov 18, 2024: Written for Me Though I haven’t committed to routine self-improvement in the past two years, there was a recent time in my life where it was always top of mind. The …
Nov 11, 2024: Thank You I have written many posts over the years marking Veterans Day. This is a day for us to pause to not only thank those who gave us everything, but the …
Nov 4, 2024: One Second On Saturday, I made a scheduled site visit for work. It’s a bit of a hike to the office, just over 2.5 hours, but the drive is mostly on big open …
Oct 28, 2024: Overflowing A good way to think about our lives, especially our spiritual lives, is as a cup. We can choose what we fill it up with. Things of beauty, prayer, the …
Oct 21, 2024: One Thousand To understand life is to understand impermanence. As we grow, experience, and learn new information, we are changed as people. We become ourselves as …
Oct 14, 2024: Things of Heaven For the many hours that I’m awake during the day, there are many things on my mind. I have what I need to do now, what I need to do next, and the …
Oct 7, 2024: Starting Over In the 5th grade, my teacher, Mr. Gleeves, would start most days by announcing, “Today is the first day of the rest of your lives.” That was over 25 …
Sep 30, 2024: Forgetting to Shift Life, and parenting, is full of shifts. From infants to teenagers, our children progress at a rapid clip. But it’s easy to find ourselves answering …
Sep 23, 2024: Small Moments When we aspire to greater things, we tend to fall into the trap of making big plans. I’ve never run a marathon, and frankly never run. So if I decided …
Sep 16, 2024: Dig Deeper It’s easy to wait for whatever’s next. Let this moment pass by, it’s nothing compared to what’s coming next. Life starts to feel like the Sims, where …
Sep 9, 2024: The Plans For I know well the plans I have in mind for you —oracle of the LORD— plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope.
Sep 2, 2024: Cloak In the Bible and Sacred Tradition, there are certain items to which we ascribe special meaning. God has a way of using ordinary things to bring into …
Aug 26, 2024: Hints of Fall The dog days of summer are in the rearview mirror as pumpkin spice season is just around the corner. It was another long, hot summer and I’m so ready …
Aug 19, 2024: Drift Winding down the mind at night is seldom easy. Our racing minds make lists, rehash events of the day, or bother us with endless ideas and anxieties …
Aug 12, 2024: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence My favorite Church song is a bit haunting. Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, like much of our liturgical life, is based on a line from the Book of …
Aug 5, 2024: Contagious Late last week, my neighbor across the street was out attempting to finish mowing his lawn. It was hot, he was no doubt tired and just wanting to be …
Jul 29, 2024: Magnet Summer continues, and my children still blissfully spend their days with ended self-directed activity. Audiobooks, creative play, play-dough, they …
Jul 22, 2024: Sacred Silence Without doubt, there’s real renewal happening in the Catholic Church. The new guard is stepping into the breach, reminding us of the sacred and …
Jul 15, 2024: Summer Break Summer, like all seasons, is racing past. When it seems like just yesterday school’s shut their doors, we’re now past the 4th of July and the new …
Jul 8, 2024: What’s Next Mindfulness gained a foothold in the imaginations of workers and corporations in the last few years, as popular apps brought reliable and lighthearted …
Jul 1, 2024: Liberty Celebrating America’s independence is on the calendar this week, which means for most it’ll be a slow week at the office. Summer is nearly halfway …
Jun 24, 2024: Pausing to Advance I have a recurring to-do that pops up every Thursday that reminds me to complete a weekly review. This is a fairly standard practice, popularized by …
Jun 17, 2024: Play-Based Childhood My first phone was the Motorola Razor. I vaguely remember getting it as I was entering my sophomore year of high school, but it could’ve been my …
Jun 10, 2024: Priorities Much thought is given to priorities, especially around the beginning of a new year. Whether we set them intentionally or not, priorities are guiding …
Jun 3, 2024: Heavenly Delights On Saturday, my daughter, Felicity, received her First Holy Communion. It was a day that she’d looked forward to for months, and why wouldn’t she? …
May 27, 2024: A Blast of Trumpets The design of our parish draws heavy inspiration from the great Italian basilicas. A large dome binds together the transepts, and the oversized …
May 20, 2024: Breathing Room Impulse shopping is really, really fun. There’s the enticement of an email, the excitement of a deal, and the endless possibilities that this next …
May 13, 2024: IOUs One of the false hopes that our psychology causes us to believe is that if we only had more, we’d be satisfied. If we only had that one more thing, a …
May 6, 2024: Do it Well Nearly 15 years out of college, I could’ve never predicted the arc of my career. I walked across the stage with a degree in Philosophy, a course of …
Apr 29, 2024: Custom Parenting Last year, when we got a dog, I thought that life would be simple. Dogs, unlike cats, are thought to be loyal and obedient. When a family needed them …
Apr 22, 2024: Pray, Now Many times, this blog has noted the depth and breadth of devotions within the Catholic Church. The dizzying array of options can lead to paralysis; …
Apr 15, 2024: Above All Things Starting in our earliest years of formation, we learn that we were made to love God “above all things.” This ideal is a daily challenge to each of us …
Apr 8, 2024: Mercy, Not Justice Yesterday was the Feast of Divine Mercy, a holy day that Jesus Himself requested in His apparitions to St. Faustina. Mercy and grace are talked about …
Apr 1, 2024: Sequence Christians, to the Paschal Victim Offer your thankful praises! A Lamb the sheep redeems; Christ, who only is sinless, Reconciles sinners to the …
Mar 25, 2024: At Your Altar Parenting is a regimented and structured adventure, with known milestones sprinkled throughout the growth and development of your children. Although I …
Mar 18, 2024: Renew, Refresh About this time, every year, Alison and I are bitten by the spring projects bug. There’s something elemental about it; I never see it coming, and it …
Mar 11, 2024: Frozen In vitro fertilization is back in the news. The Alabama Supreme Court in recent weeks issued a ruling that recognized frozen embryos stored for use in …
Mar 4, 2024: Talent Every priest has a unique gift that he offers the Church. Young men who go straight from high school to seminary offer their youth, extending their …
Feb 26, 2024: More Important Things Friday was a good day. Although it started straightforward enough, my plans were busier than usual. Not only did we have schoolwork to accomplish and …
Feb 19, 2024: 6,750 Parenting young children is exhausting, and although I know my aunt is being truthful when she wholeheartedly recommends retirement to me, I’m able to …
Feb 12, 2024: Contend The nature of the human condition is that we each bear an overriding character flaw. This is colloquially referred to as our crosses to bear, but what …
Feb 5, 2024: Start Now Tomorrow is the perfect time to start anything. With the whole day ahead of us, no interruptions, it’ll be just right. I’ll do everything that I’ve …
Jan 29, 2024: Platitudes A frequent criticism of Christians is that, in times of great sorrow or difficulty, we fall back on platitudes rather than meaningful action. It’s …
Jan 22, 2024: Daily Burn Each time a pilot prepares to fly an aircraft, he does a fuel calculation. Based on the current weather data and flight plan, he’ll calculate fuel …
Jan 15, 2024: Chasm There are an infinite number of ways that COVID changed the way in which we live our lives. Though we find ourselves four years removed from the …
Jan 8, 2024: Unraveled For the entire existence of humanity, there has been a singular experience that unites us. No matter the time, geolocation, cultural surroundings or …
Jan 1, 2024: Trailhead Three hundred and sixty-five days later, we find ourselves at another trailhead. The new year holds a great deal of symbolism in our world, although …
Dec 25, 2023: Stillness The Jewish people anticipate a great messianic return. Elijah tore off to Heaven on a chariot of fire, and he was merely a prophet! In ancient Israel, …
Dec 18, 2023: Counterfeit Sacrament It’s been quite the comedown from the moral clarity of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict. John Paul stood up to the evils of the communist system …
Dec 11, 2023: Some Greater Glory Hopelessness is poison for the soul. With nothing to look forward to in the future, man starts to unravel. Slowly, we give up on reality, sinking into …
Dec 4, 2023: Just War As advanced as we all like to think we are, even in this post-modern era, still struggle with the same essential flaws. Though we long for peace, and …
Nov 27, 2023: Aslan’s Roar The Chronicles of Narnia are legendary in their own right, a series of books worthy of sparking the imagination of any young reader. As noted before …
Nov 20, 2023: Moment of Conversion Life is a series of checkpoints, moments along the path that lead us to our final destination. In our Christian life, many of these checkpoints are …
Nov 13, 2023: Breaking Faith It’s challenging to remember the feelings we experienced at the election of Pope Francis. A total wild card, a true Vatican outsider, swept onto the …
Nov 6, 2023: Love the Path In life, we often have to walk difficult paths to achieve our desired outcomes. Whether at home, at work, spiritually or in our relationships, getting …
Oct 30, 2023: Foretaste Although easily forgotten in the midst of this week’s kickoff of the end-of-year holidays, the intent of Halloween, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' …
Oct 23, 2023: A Job Well Done There are plenty of ways to measure our work. Volume, quality, quantity, we’re never short on metrics. I think the best way to evaluate how you’re …
Oct 16, 2023: Fresh Start With the house unpacked, and the children returned, today is our family’s fresh start. We are the same people, with the same jobs and school schedule, …
Oct 9, 2023: Every Single Thing We moved last week. Although I had the benefit of a whole crew to box up our home and relocate it, once the boxes were in the correct room, the crew …
Oct 2, 2023: Natural Conclusions There’s something about waypoints in our lives that lead us to become pensive. We reflect, look back, and plan for a brighter tomorrow. These endings …
Sep 25, 2023: Bend, Don’t Break There’s only so much work that I can do in a week. Every Monday, I enter into the new week with a set number of hours that I want to work. If I work …
Sep 18, 2023: Scriptural Confession I went to confession last weekend for the first time in many months. I try to go every other week, but things have been crazy busy. The priest was a …
Sep 11, 2023: Five Minutes Spirituality is a major component of what it means to be human. We have a connection with our Creator that is far more personal and intimate than any …
Sep 4, 2023: Potential Energy The most enduring success that any of us can enjoy is often the result of extensive efforts over time. Years of quiet, diligent work results in …
Aug 28, 2023: The Genius of Mass Most Catholics ignore their obligation to go to Sunday Mass. Their reasons are myriad, but it’s a big mistake. Sunday Mass represents the most …
Aug 27, 2023: Inconvenience The kids went on vacation earlier this summer without Alison and I. Grandparents Camp is a nice annual tradition for any child. We realized that an …
Aug 21, 2023: Bottomless Tasks I start every Monday with a fresh set of hours to work, and a full task list. As the week progresses, more and more tasks are added and a few get …
Aug 14, 2023: Disrupt Wall Street is obsessed with disruptors; those companies that take a stale industry and deploy an entirely new approach, dislodging the entrenched …
Jul 31, 2023: Limitless There are certain things in life that we pick up and just can’t seem to put down. Rules, guidelines, suggestions, and ideas that we carry with us and …
Jul 24, 2023: Fifty-Four I recently finished reading Atomic Habits, the pop culture phenom beloved by productivity hackers in every industry. The premise of the book is …
Jul 17, 2023: Restart From time to time, we get derailed by life and need a reset. Although we may daydream about grandiose plans that will restore us to our former glory, …
Jul 10, 2023: Trust In the most difficult and stressful times of our lives, it’s easy to lose control of our thoughts. The Paleolithic parts of our brains take over, …
Jul 3, 2023: Free It’s hard to not be grateful when we realize the blessing of being born into this country. For all of its faults, we’ve built a Republic that thrives …
Jun 26, 2023: More Our sense of timing is incredible. Consider the level of comfort that we experience daily, with technologies and services that our predecessors could …
Jun 19, 2023: Fatherless A decade ago, at the height of the third-party mobile app ecosystem, I was trying tons of shiny new apps. One was a greeting card generator, that you …
Jun 12, 2023: Symbiosis Nature is a constant teacher. So many of the natural things that occur in our lives and in our relationships are mirrored in the animal kingdom. I …
Jun 5, 2023: Empty Halfway through my kids’ summer vacation, and I’ve hammered through my to-do list. Projects, tasks, and ideas from late 2022 are finally percolating …
May 29, 2023: Quiet Summer vacation is finally here, and the kids are off with their grandparents for two weeks. Alison and I drove home yesterday and, for the first time …
May 22, 2023: New Beginnings Growing up in a military family, moving was always a fact of life. Now with a family of my own, we’ve certainly moved a few times, but never like …
May 15, 2023: Garage Doors In my ideal world, our house would be clean all the time. Things pulled out for play would be put away, and I’d stay on top of the dishes in the …
May 8, 2023: Checkpoints The cold days of winter are behind us as the days grow warmer and spring fills all of us with a sense of newness. As we near the end of the school …
May 1, 2023: Fruits of Labor The feast of St. Joseph the Worker is an important reminder in our modern era of the holiness of work. As the pendulum swings back from the worship of …
Apr 24, 2023: The Idea Jesus is most commonly thought of as a religious figure, but in reality, his core message a fundamental change in human thinking. Jesus’ contribution …
Apr 17, 2023: Transform It can be hard, intellectually, to grasp the transformative power of Jesus. We all know the personal failure that often comes when we try to implement …
Apr 10, 2023: Summits Many years ago, shortly after turning 18 , I went on a church field trip with our young, and very athletic, priest. We set off early in the day to …
Apr 3, 2023: Homeostasis It’s in our nature to seek to control those things around us. We want to control our time, our schedule, our health, and our destiny. The opposing …
Mar 27, 2023: The Simple Path to Holiness When I wrote my first book, I didn’t take a month off work and rent a cabin in the woods. That may have been a nice setting, but I wrote in the early …
Mar 20, 2023: Ten Ten years ago, I launched this blog. With a plan, and a few months worth of work, I wrote and prepared articles for publication. They were simple, …
Mar 13, 2023: Calm For nearly fourteen hours each day, my life is filled with abundant sound and light. Some of it is at my direction, much of it is outside of my …
Mar 6, 2023: Start with Listening For the first time in many years, our parish is holding a weekly Bible study. Although the children get plenty of opportunities to learn about their …
Feb 27, 2023: Preparation It’s been just over sixty days since the joy of Christmas morning, and here we are back in a time of preparation. Though much attention is given to …
Feb 20, 2023: All on the Field I have 60–90 minutes each evening between when the children are finally in bed and when it’s time for me to go to sleep. I find myself incredibly …
Feb 13, 2023: Ski Trip After a very, very long drive, today begins our family’s annual ski trip. It’s a much anticipated vacation, with the kids especially giddy about the …
Feb 6, 2023: Obedient to Prayer If I were to sketch out a schedule for my ideal day, there would be several opportunities for prayer sprinkled throughout. No matter where I was in …
Jan 30, 2023: Work from Home Dad Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent more time working at the kitchen counter than I have working at my desk. In a way, that’s a shame because I have …
Jan 23, 2023: Permission to Push It’s easy to be overwhelmed with work. There are busy seasons, bad weeks, and times when illness or scheduling get you behind the power curve. When …
Jan 16, 2023: Work or Workout I’ve thought a lot about scheduling over the past few months. Some of it was the normal end of year reflection, and some of it was the realization …
Jan 9, 2023: Create Beauty There’s so much darkness and ugliness in the world. The links that get clicked and shows that get watched thrive on it. We almost indulge the …
Jan 2, 2023: Bible in a Year It took me far too long to set aside the time necessary to read the Bible. I went to Catholic school throughout most of my education, and took …
Dec 26, 2022: Silent Night With last week’s brutal winter weather came all sorts of inconveniences. Plans changed, businesses closed, and flights were cancelled. In a way, …
Dec 19, 2022: The Year It’s Been The final two weeks of the year always feel the same to me, and it’s a feeling that I love. Calm, peace, and finality set in as major projects …
Dec 12, 2022: The Prodigal Son The story of the prodigal son is a famous one because of its relatability. We’ve all acted foolishly, like the prodigal. We’ve also experienced that …
Dec 5, 2022: Time to Care It’s easy, when time is tight, to cut the things that benefit us. Exercise, meal prep, prayer, these are activities that seem disposable, but are in …
Nov 28, 2022: True Gratitude Thanksgiving is a remarkably calm period in my life. Not only does it signal the final few weeks of the year, but around this time, I get a palpable …
Nov 22, 2022: Simple Truths A common assumption is that children, because their minds are still developing, can’t process complex ideas. In trying to convey a point about …
Nov 21, 2022: Enjoy Today Living life day-to-day is not easy, nor is it simple. In many ways, it’s boring and mundane. I never look forward to Monday because I know the …
Nov 14, 2022: Torrents of Mercy We have a sanitized view of Jesus’ crucifixion. Although we have visuals of it everywhere, the sheer brutality is almost too difficult to think about. …
Nov 7, 2022: Constant Renewal The great spiritual lesson of St. Francis was that the key to a healthy spiritual life is to have a mindset of constant renewal. We live in a fallen …
Oct 31, 2022: Overrun Temptation is a very personal thing. Each of us struggle with our blend of habitual sin. It’s not that we’re failures in the spiritual life, it’s that …
Oct 24, 2022: The Emperor Has No Clothes Hypocrisy is part of what it means to be human. We’re deeply flawed. To have the expectation that we can live our lives with the rock solid integrity …
Oct 17, 2022: Share Your Best Work Sharing your work is a frightening thought. As I write many of these posts, thoughts creep up in my mind about how they will be received. Is this the …
Oct 10, 2022: The Sexualization of Everything I have to imagine that there was a time in human history when every human relationship wasn’t sexualized. No doubt, we’ve always had a certain …
Oct 3, 2022: Balance I left the workforce in the fall of 2014 to stay home and take care of Benedict. Alison was just beginning her residency, and her monthly schedule …
Sep 26, 2022: Plese Destroy I took my son to Confession this weekend. He’s still pretty new to the Sacrament, so each time he goes, I print an Examination of Conscience for him …
Sep 19, 2022: A Single Spark There’s a funny thing about inertia. It stands in our way and holds us back until the moment that it doesn’t. It’s all or nothing; it’s a concrete …
Sep 12, 2022: Freedom Squandered No other nation, in the history of civilization, has endured so long without the benefit of kings or authoritarians. The United States has achieved a …
Sep 5, 2022: Homeschooling Last Monday, just after breakfast this morning, my children gathered in our schoolroom at the sound of the bell. We stood together for morning prayer, …
Aug 29, 2022: Behold, Your Mother Catholics catch a lot of shade from other Christians over the idea that we don’t live the Bible. A closer look under the hood would revel just how …
Aug 22, 2022: Come Let Us Adore Although I’m a cradle Catholic, I’ve never really read the entire Bible. I learned about parts of it in school, and of course have heard it during …
Aug 15, 2022: Comfort Last night, when my work for the day was done, I laid down in my very comfortable bed. I recently replaced my pillow, which made for an extra cushy …
Aug 8, 2022: Letting Go of Efficiency It’s a Friday morning and time to run errands in the big city. Before we leave the house, I cycle through the various routes, selecting the most …
Aug 1, 2022: Diligence On Friday night, at 8:30pm to be exact, a very motivated local landscaping supply business owner dropped off a pallet of sod in my driveway. Several …
Jul 25, 2022: Spring Water Growing up, I’d drink nothing but milk. Now, for lunch that can’t possibly be true, but I have a distinct memory from childhood of drinking tons of …
Jul 18, 2022: Slow Progress We awake to find ourselves suddenly in a Post-Roe world. The question of abortion is thrown back into the political process, and it’s dawning on all …
Jul 11, 2022: Pause I’m back from summer vacation, a whole week experiencing Northern Michigan. It was a great reprieve from the heat, and a chance to go to places that …
Jul 4, 2022: Worth Celebrating At every point in our Nation’s life, all 246 years, there have been voices predicting its imminent collapse. There’s no doubt that we have struggled …
Jun 27, 2022: The Work Begins For 49 years, our voice on the fundamental issue for society was silenced. A contrived legal theory, enshrined in precedent, permitted a mother, with …
Jun 20, 2022: Fathers for Good God’s plan of salvation for the World contains essential truths and profound beauty. He chose man to be held in esteem above all other beings in the …
Jun 13, 2022: Universal Church To prepare Benedict for receiving his First Communion and Confirmation, Alison and I thought he should go to Reconciliation the week before. It’s not …
Jun 6, 2022: Friday Night Adoration This week, Benedict will complete his initiation into the Catholic faith when he receives the Sacrament of Confirmation. With just a few days to go, I …
May 30, 2022: Sacred Treasure Benedict is about to receive his First Communion, and he’s very excited about it. We’ve prepared for nearly a year, and the time is almost here. …
May 23, 2022: A Time for Play Work expands to the time that you give it. Work is a good thing, giving structure and purpose to our days. It allows us to share our skills with …
May 16, 2022: Parental Love Our long holiday from democratic debate over one of the most contentious issues of our time appears to be ending. In the theme of this year, a return …
May 9, 2022: Turn on Your Brain The culture of rage is here, a general acceptance of rule breaking in the furtherance of political ends. Rage is primal, reaching into the area of …
May 2, 2022: A Fresh Look For over a year now, we’ve lived in our new house. I think that it takes time to get used to your new environment before you deeply understand what …
Apr 25, 2022: The Paradox of Time There’s a quirk in human psychology when it comes to time. We have lists of things that we’d like to do, but never enough time to do them. Yet, when …
Apr 18, 2022: Victory Easter is here and the tomb is empty. The timing of Easter this year was prescient. In my listening to the “Bible in a Year” podcast, I lined up …
Apr 11, 2022: The Human Person It’s a great paradox that in the Information Age, when every book every written and every fact known to man is available on your phone, that our …
Apr 4, 2022: Increments Lent is quickly winding down, and perhaps the success of your Lenten rituals is a bit checkered. Sustaining any type of radical life change is often …
Mar 28, 2022: Examination of Conscience Last month, my son received his first confession. As he was preparing to receive the Sacrament again last weekend, I sat down for a few minutes to …
Mar 21, 2022: A Sense of the Sacred A few years ago, I watched a documentary about the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. They followed the historic rise and fall of the population, …
Mar 14, 2022: Desensitized Evil’s greatest objective is to desensitize us to its reality. If we fail to perceive evil for the threat that it is, to our lives and our society, …
Mar 7, 2022: Never Wasted Starting or growing a habit of prayer can seem like a big lift. We first have to restructure our day to meet our new objective, and then we have to …
Feb 28, 2022: 13 Cents Lent is upon us, this year’s opportunity for us to take a fresh look at our spiritual life. As our thoughts turn to what we’re going to …
Feb 21, 2022: Icy Slopes I went skiing for the first time in my life last week. We started discussing a trip in July and firmed up later in the fall. I spent a lot of time …
Feb 14, 2022: Detailing Our vacation plan for this year included a trip to the Great White North to enjoy a week of snow, play, and skiing. Driving north, the landscape …
Feb 7, 2022: Keto Recycle Over the past three years, I’ve experimented with the keto diet. It’s fashionable right now, a fact that’s helped me stay …
Jan 31, 2022: Noticing Progress It’s hard to notice progress in our personal growth. We’re so intimately familiar with ourselves that small changes are imperceptible. Even the …
Jan 24, 2022: Applied Bioethics One of the best outcomes from majoring in Philosophy is how it nurtured my sense of curiosity. The toolset that I gained helps me look critically at …
Jan 17, 2022: Preparations I love to drive. Each year, our family takes two or three major road trips. These are highlights of my year, even if occasionally the kids don’t …
Jan 10, 2022: Image and Likeness 2021 was supposed to be the year of civility and normalcy. Well, we didn’t get it. Instead, we got more acrimony and animosity. Last year I wrote …
Jan 3, 2022: All Things New What a lousy two years we’ve had. Disruption, distortion, and distrust maligned what was supposed to be a grand opening of a new decade. Peace, …
Dec 28, 2021: Love So Deep The bright Christmas lights that lit homes in my neighborhood since Thanksgiving have gone dark. For my neighbors, Christmas ended at bedtime on …
Dec 20, 2021: Now In some ways, I think that we like the busyness of life. Sure, everyone complains and uses it as an excuse or justification. I deserve this break …
Dec 13, 2021: Creating Evil I rarely go to the movies. In fact, I think the last new movie that I saw in theaters was Mission Impossible 6 in the summer of 2018. I intended to go …
Dec 6, 2021: Make Straight Paths Advent is like happy Lent. Both seasons are penitential, and both invite us to prepare our hearts for the two seminal moments of the Church year. Yet, …
Nov 29, 2021: Pivot We’re in a season of disruption. Three major holidays in a row, travel plans, end of year tasks, and more all add up to significant calendar changes. …
Nov 15, 2021: Scripture Before Phone I just finished reading The Common Rule by Justin Earley. A former missionary and currently an attorney, Earley lived through the negative …
Nov 8, 2021: Dads on Duty There’s a great human interest story making its rounds about a high school in Louisiana. They’ve suffered numerous fights this academic year, leading …
Nov 1, 2021: Acceptance Most of the Christian life is about acceptance. Acceptance is the humble admission that the great plans of God are far superior to the limited ones we …
Oct 25, 2021: Unglued I was reading my favorite personal finance blog earlier, when I came across a guest post. To my astonishment, a human being, with a doctoral degree, …
Oct 18, 2021: Stony Hearts Certain things stand out to me when I read the news. Lately, it’s been the callous words that journalists use when they write about abortion. It’s not …
Oct 11, 2021: Perfect Heroes Hero is a common word these days. Healthcare workers are heroes for putting themselves and their families at risk to provide care for the sick. …
Oct 4, 2021: Month of the Rosary It’s hard to believe that October is already here. The dog days of summer are over, kids are back in school, and more pleasant weather is in the …
Sep 27, 2021: Do Nothing My day has a way of getting away from me. For the first 90 minutes that I’m up, I’m in complete control. I walk, read the paper, pray, drink coffee. …
Sep 20, 2021: Nine Earlier this month, Alison and I marked our ninth wedding anniversary. In years past, I’d take the opportunity to write a post sharing some new thing …
Sep 13, 2021: When A Child Prays Franciscan University of Steubenville has a great culture of prayer. After each Mass, everyone kneels for a few moments of prayer. The sanctuary is …
Sep 6, 2021: Incremental Progress Five months ago, Alison and I woke up on a Saturday morning and headed into our front yard. Over the course of the day, we cut down over two dozen …
Aug 30, 2021: Building Momentum Just after my birthday this Spring, I started walking again each morning. My most successful streaks start with little planning and no fanfare. My …
Aug 23, 2021: The Monk and the Merchant The pictures coming out of Afghanistan are heartbreaking. We will forever remember the image of the C-17 taxiing down the runway with dozens of people …
Aug 16, 2021: Humble Fatherhood This November is the two-year anniversary of the release of my book Humble Service, a book about the lessons learned on my journey as an at-home dad. …
Aug 9, 2021: Environment I caught the back to school bug last week. The malaise of summer broke, and I worked through my checklist of projects. I oiled squeaky doors, replaced …
Aug 2, 2021: Second New Year August is here and back to school is right around the corner. We limped over the finish line in June, and it’s hard to believe that we’re about to get …
Jul 26, 2021: Spiritual Wokeism I’m old enough to remember when being woke was enough to get you made fun of on SNL. What started as a fringe idea has now overrun the academy, …
Jul 19, 2021: Lazy Summer Days With deep regret, my vacation is over. A few days at home with just one kid to watch, followed by a cross-country drive to a week at Lake Michigan. …
Jul 12, 2021: To The Lake July at home is a hot, muggy affair. Humidity rarely disappears, meaning even my early morning walks, long before the sun breaks the new day, are hot …
Jul 5, 2021: A Quiet House On Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:00am and went for a walk. I came home, sat down, and read the news. This is a pretty normal morning for me. Just …
Jun 28, 2021: Regret Jolting moments happen in a man’s life that inevitably lead to a health kick. An engagement and the birth of a child are two of the big ones. The main …
Jun 21, 2021: A Father’s Love What is the measure of a good father? Is it the serenity in his house, the manicured lawn, or perhaps just food on the table every evening? All men …
Jun 14, 2021: Sprinting Alison and I will celebrate our nine-year anniversary this fall. It’s been a very full and busy nine years. In fact, many of the plans that we set for …
Jun 7, 2021: Faith Enrichment The Catholic faith offers many wonderful experiences and expressions. Pilgrimages, devotionals, even listening to a great sermon. Yesterday was the …
May 31, 2021: Team I’ve been out of school for more than a decade. Alison and I have four kids, own our home, and educate our children. We live far away from our …
May 24, 2021: Kill the Golden Calf Everyone hates the polarized culture, but no one wants to give an inch. We blame the other side as the source of all of our problems. Perhaps we …
May 17, 2021: Invest Today My knowledge as a parent goes only as far as my oldest child. I know how to deal with young kids, but am clueless about pre-teens, teens, and beyond. …
May 10, 2021: In the Backyard This is our first house with a fence. A simple wooden structure that encloses our backyard doesn’t seem like much. In fact, it was built years ago and …
May 3, 2021: Weakness “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Cor 12:9 As a part of my study of St. Joseph and his life, I picked up a …
Apr 26, 2021: Two Weeks I was on a roll back in late January. I refocused on my physical health sooner in the calendar year than normal and had a nice streak built up. Then …
Apr 19, 2021: Bribe There’s a truth that is never clear in the mind of a child: everything a parent does is for a reason. They rarely can see the bigger picture, so an …
Apr 12, 2021: Mercy Divine Mercy Sunday was yesterday. This annual jubilee is a reset available for anyone who wants it. More importantly, it’s a reminder of the depths …
Apr 5, 2021: He is Not Here What a Lent! After a year of pandemic and lockdowns, this Spring is starting to feel quite refreshing. Vaccine rollouts continue, along with positive …
Mar 29, 2021: Lent. Oops. If you can recall, I started Lent with a lot of confidence. Well, I planned for it with a lot of confidence. My plans relied on a faulty expectation …
Mar 22, 2021: The Family Home Alison and I bought our first home last year. Leading up to the purchase, I failed to anticipate how much different ownership would make me feel. I …
Mar 15, 2021: Milestones This week will mark the eighth anniversary of this blog. We live in a hurried and distracted culture, one in which we assume that longevity means …
Mar 8, 2021: A Day of Play This weekend was pretty special. My father-in-law is in town for the week. He came for a visit and to assemble a playground for my kids in our new …
Mar 1, 2021: I Know What to Do I know what I need to do. I know what habits and activities leave me feeling rejuvenated, and which leave me feeling sluggish. Waking up on time and …
Feb 22, 2021: A Week of Warmth It was a week of snow and ice, sleet and freezing rain. It was a week of downed power lines, rolling blackouts, and water boil advisories. Not only …
Feb 15, 2021: Lent IRL We’re two days away from the start of Lent. Over the past decade, my views on the Lenten season have evolved to the point where I’m excited to get …
Feb 8, 2021: Building Your Domestic Church What’s the difference between a priest and a husband? In a word: scale. What the priest does for his community, a husband must do for his family. We …
Feb 1, 2021: Scripture Under the Stars Many times on this blog, I’ve shared my love of walking. It’s the exercise that I most enjoy, and I’m now eight years into this routine. The habit …
Jan 25, 2021: Off the Wagon After years of practice and observation, I know the keep components that I need to build up physical health. I need to walk for an hour daily, drink …
Jan 18, 2021: These Days Over the weekend, I finished reading a book. The last time I accomplished that feat was in August. I’ve started a walking streak, another habit that …
Jan 11, 2021: Uncertainty Something remarkable happens when you engage in a daily habit of prayer. I’ve written before about attunement, being more aware of God’s presence in …
Jan 4, 2021: Taste Our senses guide us as we move through the world and animate our path as we go. We see colors, objects, and people. The background noise of our home …
Dec 28, 2020: Time Lost The last week of the year is traditionally a pensive time for me. In an ordinary year, I would wrap up major projects, revamp my productivity systems, …
Dec 21, 2020: Waiting The Fourth Week of Advent is here, and our time of preparation is coming to a close. We’ve spent nearly a month awaiting the arrival of the King, and …
Dec 14, 2020: Carrying Too Much As I sit to write this post, I’m at the kitchen counter in our new house. We’re in the midst of a move. I’ve moved more than a dozen times in my life …
Dec 7, 2020: A Prepared Heart Advent is here, that most joyous of seasons. In my neighborhood, everyone put up their Christmas lights on Thanksgiving afternoon, at least those who …
Nov 30, 2020: Thankful for What It’s been a year. 2020 ushered in a new decade and along with it so much hope. As we’ve slugged out the past eleven months, it may be hard to …
Nov 23, 2020: Praying As A Parent For nearly three years, I’ve done most of my shopping via pickup. From time to time, though, I need to go into the store to make a return. Doing that …
Nov 16, 2020: What Did We Learn? America’s political class went into Election Day with a very specific idea of how things were going to go. As the returns came in that evening, a …
Nov 9, 2020: Live Today Jesus told us to not worry about tomorrow, that it would take care of itself. I wrote a few weeks ago about how it’s time for us to move past the …
Nov 6, 2020: Off the Reservation This blog has defended Pope Francis. He told us to go out into the Church and the world to make a mess. His pontificate has certainly achieved that …
Nov 2, 2020: Election Eve Election day is finally here. What a cycle it’s been! In many respects, this election cycle has been just as dramatic as any other. It’s the biggest, …
Oct 19, 2020: Time to Go Life in March was paralyzing. The incessant flow of negative news stories crashed over us like a tsunami. Our society endured the first global health …
Oct 12, 2020: Life with Four I bring a lot of structure and process to my life. During the day, when I’m alone with my children, I need that support. I need to have decisions …
Oct 5, 2020: Pandemic Confession I’ve made no secret that I’m a frequent recipient of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Once or twice a month, I leave my house on a Saturday afternoon …
Sep 28, 2020: Reading Together Filling up every minute of the day with activity for my kids is a real struggle. My kids are always up for adventure or doing something new, but each …
Sep 21, 2020: The New Evangelization Stumbles Getting to Mass on a weekday is hard for me, and that was before the pandemic. The difficulty is not handling my four kids by myself for half an hour. …
Sep 14, 2020: Troops I came up in the Boy Scouts program, rising from the 1st Grade Tigers program to the rank of Eagle Scout. Along the trail, I learned many life skills. …
Sep 7, 2020: Default to Yes A new school year is upon us. For many parents, September is like a second January, a natural point in the year when we review our life, our goals, …
Aug 31, 2020: Eight It’s been a very fast eight years since Alison and I met at the altar and committed ourselves to one another. Each year on this blog, I like to take …
Aug 24, 2020: Answered Prayers In the months leading up to my daughter’s birth, I was anxious. Both of her sisters took nearly two weeks to make it home from the hospital. The …
Aug 17, 2020: Together It’s amazing what spouses can do when they work together. Alison and I are fast approaching our eight year anniversary. While we’re still in early …
Aug 10, 2020: Start I have a subscription to Magnificat that I’ve had for over a year now. It’s a wonderful prayer companion, filled each month with fresh perspectives, …
Aug 3, 2020: Four Certainly children are a gift from the LORD, the fruit of the womb, a reward. Psalm 127:5
Jul 27, 2020: Focus The opportunity to gain clarity in your life is rare. The busyness of the world and daily distractions easily get us to lose focus on our objectives. …
Jul 20, 2020: A Few Extra Minutes Taking care of children is no easy task. Apart from the heavy lifting of moral and character education are the daily mundane tasks. These are the …
Jul 13, 2020: Our Responsibility Once or twice a month, I’ll take an hour or so on a Saturday afternoon to go to Confession. Occasionally, I’ll throw in an additional errand or two …
Jul 6, 2020: Daily Preventative Medicine Virtue is the antidote to sin. It’s not enough to avoid sin, whether by white-knuckling it or avoiding triggers. The only way to truly avoid sin is to …
Jun 29, 2020: Opening the Domestic Church The center of the daily life of the Church is the Eucharist, but it’s not the whole life. Most of us have been unable to physically access the Mass …
Jun 22, 2020: Beyond Routine For a few weeks now, I’ve felt like I was adrift. While considering my daily routine and struggling to get back on the horse, I came to a deeper …
Jun 15, 2020: Safety and Stability We live comfortably, but that’s rarely the experience of Catholics. Many, if not most Catholics throughout history lived very rough lives. They’ve …
Jun 8, 2020: First Communion I made my First Communion more than two decades ago. In that time, I’ve rarely been more than seven days without receiving the Eucharist. As I sit …
Jun 1, 2020: Contemplating Life Change is on the horizon for my family. Later this summer, we’ll be welcoming our fourth child home. The Book of Psalms describes children as a “gift …
May 25, 2020: Some Gave All Memorial Day marks the official start of summer. While the holiday weekend is typically filled with travel and cookouts, this year the celebrations …
May 18, 2020: The Lessons Learned Back in January, I had high hopes and expectations for 2020. The future was bright as a new decade dawned. Even just saying 2020 felt hopeful. In …
May 11, 2020: Resisting Structure Sticking to a routine and a list of daily habits is much easier to do when I have momentum. Building up that momentum over a series of weeks propels …
May 4, 2020: Dive Into Something What a difference three months can make! Back in January, I felt completely overwhelmed with all of my ongoing projects. I committed to trimming my …
Apr 27, 2020: Do What Works Last year, I had the most incredible breakthrough in my life. I achieved health and fitness goals that I set for myself a decade ago. The hardest …
Apr 20, 2020: Family Walks When I was in high school, we had neighbors who went for a family walk almost every evening. The family of four, along with their dog, could reliably …
Apr 13, 2020: Out of the Tomb After an epic Lent, Easter has finally come. The earth is teeming with the new life of Spring and we enter into the joyful season at the center of our …
Apr 6, 2020: Mind Your Diet We become what we consume. The uncertainty that we all experience now is only intensified when we marinate in the news of the day. To be sure, we all …
Mar 30, 2020: In the Desert What a Lent this has been. We’re familiar with the story of Jesus going out into the desert for 40 days, but never before have we had such an acute …
Mar 23, 2020: Renewal Last week kicked off Spring. Not many of us are feeling the usual cheerfulness and refreshment that this change of season brings. Instead, we find …
Mar 19, 2020: St. Joseph While I normally post once per week, I wanted to write today because it’s a special day. While the World grapples with the Coronavirus pandemic and …
Mar 16, 2020: Connecting While Isolated Difficult times for Catholics are here. From the founding of our Church, community has been a central aspect of our faith. We gather, from our many …
Mar 9, 2020: Specter of Pandemic In late December and early January, the Wuhan virus was a distant trouble. It was an outbreak isolated to a province of China that few of us had ever …
Mar 2, 2020: Kids and Lent I’m always caught off guard by my kids gaining new abilities. They rarely tell me that they’re ready to take on new challenges. Then one day, O ask …
Feb 24, 2020: Let Us Go to God’s House I spent a few hours on Saturday morning at a men’s retreat. The theme of this year’s retreat was “faith alive.” As a part of Morning Prayer, we prayed …
Feb 17, 2020: Teaching Kids Why Our society is suffering from an intellectual sickness. We lack curiosity. Ideas are no longer challenged and explored, but instead are accepted on …
Feb 10, 2020: Preparing for Lent Ash Wednesday is a little more than two weeks away. The joy of the Christmas season is fading as we prepare for forty days of fasting and penance. Not …
Feb 3, 2020: Consistency About the time that dinner ends each evening, I crash. My energy runs out, and I want nothing more than to get the kids into bed and sit down. Bedtime …
Jan 27, 2020: Normalcy It’s the last week of January, which means just about everyone’s New Years resolutions are forgotten. Gyms have emptied out, restaurants have removed …
Jan 20, 2020: Cherish Your Children After several months of vacation, I’ve gotten back into my routine of walking each morning before the kids get up. My day can be very exhausting, so …
Jan 13, 2020: Seeking Rest As the stay-at-home parent in my family, I struggle with the tension of rest. There are some days when I feel completely drained and I can’t wait for …
Jan 6, 2020: Twenty Twenty Focus The constant rushing of life can feel crushing. Like the overwhelming power of a waterfall, events and information come at me in a daily deluge. …
Dec 30, 2019: A Remarkable Year As I wrote in January about my grand plans for 2019, I laid out a vision for a totally new me. I recognized the malaise that I had fallen into over …
Dec 23, 2019: The Joy of the Season In the blink of an eye, the end of 2019 is just over a week away and we’re at the threshold of the Christmas season. What better way to crown the year …
Dec 16, 2019: Not from Scratch I woke up at my normal time on Saturday morning, went for my walk, came home, and got ready for the day. I walked into the kitchen at about the same …
Dec 9, 2019: Everybody Helps At the beginning of 2019, I sat down to think about annual themes for my family. I wanted to have a lens through which we’d filter our daily life, …
Nov 26, 2019: Humble Service Life as a stay-at-home dad was nothing like I expected. For the first two years, with only a toddler to watch, I was bored. As my family grew, I …
Nov 18, 2019: Poverty I had a dream a few months ago that my family and I were refugees. My dream was vivid. We arrived in a camp with only the clothes on our backs. We …
Nov 11, 2019: On Retreat I made my first private retreat in twelve years last weekend. I left all of my electronics at home, and after dinner on Friday night, drove off into …
Nov 4, 2019: Servant Leadership Many people want the title, pomp, and circumstance that comes with leadership. They crave the seniority, the deference, the perks, the reserved …
Oct 28, 2019: Spiritual Health Spirituality is an integral part of what it means to be a human person. Ignore your physical health, and your emotional wellbeing suffers. Ignore your …
Oct 21, 2019: Reaching A Goal I still remember it vividly. I stepped on to the scale one winter morning to see a three digit number that scared me: 207 lbs. I was six months out of …
Oct 14, 2019: The Importance of Self-Care When I was first preparing to transition to my new life as a stay-at-home dad, there was a movement happening within the writing circles that I …
Oct 7, 2019: Read A Book When you think about your overall health, or even your performance as a stay-at-home dad, I want you to think in terms of balance. Like a body builder …
Sep 30, 2019: Self-Awareness The gift of self-awareness is one that few bother to develop. In the midst of our busyness, we become numb. The curiosity of our youth fades, until we …
Sep 23, 2019: Transformation There’s something natural about self-criticism. We see ourselves in pictures, and we instantly focus on our faults and imperfections. In many ways, …
Sep 16, 2019: Little Kids Praying Praying with little kids is often a difficult experience. While I try to set a good example, my kids often fiddle, wander, or play. As it turns out, …
Sep 9, 2019: Mindfulness My experience with mindfulness is a bit checkered. I’ve used a few of the popular apps out there to learn the practice, to some degree of success. For …
Sep 2, 2019: Seven Seven years ago, Alison and I started our life together. Captured so perfectly in the photograph in the banner of this website, the years have passed …
Aug 26, 2019: Dinner Table Just before moving two years ago, Alison and I went furniture shopping. We had gotten by for four years with the furniture that we had each brought …
Aug 19, 2019: Spiritual Bankruptcy I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the mass shootings gripping our society. Young men, disaffected and isolated, suffering from mental illness, …
Jul 22, 2019: All-Time Fatherhood Expectations of fathers change over time. There was a period of time where the only requirement of fathers was to pursue their career for the good of …
Jul 15, 2019: Soft Power In the world of international diplomacy, there are two main forms of exerting pressure on another nation. The first is hard power. That’s to say, …
Jul 7, 2019: Like an Abbot St. Benedict is a well known figure within Catholicism, but his impact had a direct role on the preservation of Western Culture. Benedict grew up in …
Jul 1, 2019: Drift All things being equal, I’d like to keep a regular schedule. I’d like to have my day divided into neat little blocks of time, and simply progress from …
Jun 25, 2019: The Scandal Many Catholics in the United States felt in the opening years of the millennium that we had stared down our inner-demons. The uproar over the sexual …
Jun 17, 2019: Headspace Cal Newport, the university professor and researcher who famously has never joined any social media network, published a remarkable book this year …
Jun 10, 2019: Taking Kids to Mass It’s been a number of years since I’ve been to Mass on a regular basis without my kids. When Alison and I just had the one, and he was an infant, it …
May 27, 2019: On Rest I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of rest lately. As a parent to three young kids, my days are quite busy. For 12 hours each day, I’m running at …
May 13, 2019: Goodbye, PBS Kids Parenting in every era has its unique challenges. It’s never been easy and the challenges are always different. One aspect of parenting is …
Apr 29, 2019: Tiny Saints A few months ago, I was given a “Tiny Saint” for a gift. Tiny Saints is a relatively new business that sells small rubber keychains of different …
Apr 22, 2019: Lent Lost We’ve moved beyond the season of Lent and into the joy of Easter. About this time each year, I reflect on how successful Lent was, comparing my plans …
Apr 15, 2019: Themes This is a big year for me. My son is starting school in the fall, my middle child is coming into her own, and my baby is getting ready to stand up on …
Mar 4, 2019: Praying as a Family When we pray in a group, we’re vulnerable. Even if it’s just our family surrounding us, it’s easy to feel uncomfortable. That’s because prayer comes …
Feb 25, 2019: The Gift of Faith A few weeks ago, I attended a men’s prayer breakfast at my parish. The speaker gave a short talk on the importance of praying as a family. One of the …
Jan 7, 2019: Twenty Nineteen In years past, I would take this opportunity to recap my year prior and lay out my plan for the new year. It’s a great time to take stock of your life …
Dec 31, 2018: Becoming Technoskeptic When the iOS App Store first opened its doors, I was one of the first customers. For years, coworkers would query me about the latest and greatest …
Dec 24, 2018: Making Breakfast It’s the little things that make the biggest difference. Most mornings, I invest a few minutes in my marriage, but Alison isn’t even in the same room. …
Dec 17, 2018: Thinking Forward Typically at the end of the year, I’ll write a post about my goals, both looking back and planning forward. Like most people, I have a checkered track …
Dec 10, 2018: On Tumblr Tumblr recently faced an internal crisis. The niche mass-blogging platform had become widely accepting of adult themed blogs. Pornographic images were …
Dec 3, 2018: Where Emotion and Perception Rule My degree is in classical philosophy, with a heavy emphasis in Ancient Greek thought. Of all of the courses that I took, none stand out as more …
Nov 26, 2018: Shepherd Your Flock Parenting takes courage. I’m the parent of three small children. I stay home with them during the day, and am so grateful to have Alison there with me …
Nov 19, 2018: Thankful Thanksgiving is a great American holiday. The virtue of gratitude is baked into our national DNA. There’s something really beautiful and attractive …
Nov 12, 2018: Media Anxiety The midterm elections are concluded. With over 700 days before the 2020 presidential election, the news cycle is running wild with speculation as to …
Nov 5, 2018: Guard Your Joy There are many reasons to be optimistic in life, especially as an American. We live in comfort and peace. I go to bed at night, not fearing roving …
Oct 29, 2018: Jehovah’s Witness There are many things that I’m getting used to now that I live in a house in a neighborhood. Living in an apartment or in a rural community, there …
Oct 22, 2018: The Gluttony of Surfing I remember a time two decades ago when the Internet was a fun place to be. It was new, exciting, and you could spend hours getting lost in new and …
Oct 15, 2018: Taking Care of Yourself Over the past nine months or so, I’ve really let my personal care slide. I’m normally really good about my oral hygiene, but there have been days when …
Oct 8, 2018: Zero Screens I have an ambitious goal. In many ways, it may appear opposed to who I am as a person. I consider myself to be well versed in technology. I stay up to …
Jul 10, 2018: Economics of Staying Home There’s nothing wrong about a family in which both parents work outside of the home. Each family’s situation is different, and the choice about …
Jun 19, 2018: Integrity in Productivity My days are pretty full; that’s by design. I have my primary job, which is taking care of the kids. Layered on top of that job is my responsibility …
Jun 12, 2018: Comprehensive Sexual Education Parents have to do many uncomfortable things, not least of which is provide their children with a sexual education. This is what it means to be a …
Jun 5, 2018: Dear Father I’m the youngest of three kids. Before I had my first child, I didn’t know anything about kids. I understand that my little ones may be confusing, but …
May 29, 2018: Why Boredom Happens I was at our Credit Union last week conducting some business when one of the employees remarked that it was her parents’ wedding anniversary. A …
May 22, 2018: Commit Yourself to A Program What a privilege it is to live in the Modern era. No matter what goal I set for myself, someone has already achieved it, and their method is readily …
May 15, 2018: Build Your Parish Community A few years ago, my parents’ parish redesigned their website. I have an interest in these sorts of things, so I complemented my mom one day on its …
May 8, 2018: Set the Bar Low I’m not one to advocate for low bars. I’ve been told that I am particularly hard on people, which, upon reflection, is regrettably true. Setting …
May 1, 2018: Quitting Social Media I remember a time, a decade ago, when the Internet was fun. It was an open, collaborative place where you could find interesting articles and links, …
Apr 10, 2018: Gardener We’re lucky in the summer to have several large oak trees around our house. They give us glorious shade and a respite from the intense afternoon sun. …
Apr 3, 2018: Controlling Kids in Church Taking kids to Church is hard. There’s getting everyone fed, cleaned, dressed, and out the door on time. Then, of course, there’s the issue of noise. …
Mar 20, 2018: Momentum A 10-day stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) will drain you. Lucy’s stay was a bit unexpected, and very frustrating. I think any parent of …
Mar 13, 2018: Data Driven I’m a guy who likes data. I like to see numbers, charts, and graphs. I can understand them and make decisions based off of them. It’s just the way …
Mar 6, 2018: A Successful Day Defining success is elusive. In fact, it’s one of the more personal determinations that we make. We’ve had some great examples of success with the …
Feb 27, 2018: 21 Years I just celebrated the 21st anniversary of my First Reconciliation. Confession is the gym of Catholic Sacraments. We rarely go, too sheepish to …
Feb 20, 2018: Resilience As a parent, I have a ton of things that I want to teach my children. I want to give them the skills and values that I believe will help them grow …
Feb 13, 2018: I Choose Superhero Our cities and neighborhoods produce the finest political thinkers, artists, innovators, and pioneers on the planet. Our forefathers pulled themselves …
Feb 6, 2018: August Ames Until late last year, I didn’t know August Ames. One day in early December, I was checking in on the treading topics, and clicked her name. She was a …
Jan 16, 2018: Living in A Fantasy I love reading the paper. I’ve written about that fact several times on this blog. Perhaps my favorite part of reading the paper is reading the …
Jan 3, 2018: In Memoriam My niece, Maddux Rose, passed away yesterday. She was born in December with a genetic disorder. I ask for your prayers for her parents and sisters. In …
Jan 2, 2018: Integrating the Bible in Your Life I want to share something with you that made an outsized impact on my life last year. For me, 2017 was full of change and new circumstances. In the …
Nov 22, 2017: A Father’s Gratitude The life of a stay-at-home dad isn’t easy. It’s much more difficult than I imagined it would be. My days are in constant motion. I get out of bed at 5 …
Nov 15, 2017: Big Finishes Don’t Require Big Starts I used to think that the running story line in Forrest Gump was absurd. One day Forrest starts running. He runs to the end of his driveway, city …
Oct 25, 2017: The Impact of a Great Confession Each time I move to a new place, there are two people that I need to find. The first is a great barber and the second is a great confessor. Finding …
Jan 4, 2017: On Hiatus Four years ago, I started this project. My transition out of the workforce was on the horizon, and I wanted something to work on while Benedict was …
Dec 27, 2016: Make 2017 A Change Year I love this last week of the year. There’s a feeling of hope and anticipation for the New Year. We’re eager for this grand reset, and we even start …
Dec 22, 2016: Redacting In-Law Marriage is full of misunderstanding. While in our circle of friends and in media we bemoan the lack of freedom and small annoyances of our spouses, …
Dec 20, 2016: The American Family Then and Now I’ve always been interested in American history, in particular American military history. As a son of the South, I enjoy learning about the Civil War …
Dec 15, 2016: Offense & Defense Watch any sporting event, and you’ll quickly learn that having a strong offense or defense is seldom enough to ensure a victory. If you run up the …
Dec 13, 2016: Perfect is the Enemy of Good As 2016 comes to a close, we’re on the cusp of the New Year Resolutions bonanza. Each year I share my thoughts on the idea of resolutions, and my …
Dec 6, 2016: The List With just a few weeks until Christmas, I’m sure that your shopping is in full swing. For many of us, the hustle and bustle can be disheartening. In …
Nov 24, 2016: Count Your Blessings Greetings from the Jersey Shore! My family has gathered once again this week from five different states to celebrate Thanksgiving together with our …
Nov 22, 2016: Returning to Divine Freedom The faith of the martyrs has always been an inspiration to me. Throughout history, men and women of all ages and states in life have laid down their …
Nov 17, 2016: Understanding God the Father I underestimated how impactful parenting would be on my spiritual life. I’ve found that nothing has better helped me to understand the mind of God …
Nov 15, 2016: Mending Election Fences Our culture is sick. How far we have fallen from the America that De Tocqueville documented in his journeys. In many ways, I believe that the way that …
Nov 8, 2016: Thoughts on Friendship in the Digital Age One of my favorite activities is to pick an area of life where I need improvement and to work hard to make a change. I can only focus on one thing at …
Nov 3, 2016: The First Step to Being A Better Spouse Everyone wants a happy marriage, but not everyone is willing to work for it. We’ve become too self-centered to recognize that we can build the …
Nov 1, 2016: The Necessity of Rest (and Why You Need More of It) I spent four years in the workforce after college. The environment was challenging, but it was a nonprofit, so people were kind about it. There was a …
Oct 6, 2016: Take Permission to Pray I’m a recovering productivity addict. I used to love optimizing everything. I’d find the best apps, the fastest way to get a job done, and I’d proceed …
Oct 4, 2016: Giving Up on Giving Up Slowly One of my favorite Relient K songs opens with the verse, “I’m giving up on giving up slowly.” It’s a song about redemption, resolve, and hope in a …
Sep 20, 2016: Seeking Simplicity Life has a way of coming full circle. Just five years ago, when I was young, free, and single, I was obsessed with technology. My phone had over 100 …
Sep 13, 2016: Pam, Porn, & Paul There’s no renewal without conversion. There’s no mercy without justice. There’s no resurrection without the Cross. These axioms define what it means …
Sep 8, 2016: Pro-Life with Credibility The modern pro-life movement has focused on the issue of abortion. It would seem that is an appropriate focus given the scope of abortion and the …
Sep 6, 2016: The Duplicity of Moral Superiority There’s a tendency in human thought to desire superiority over others. We must show those we resent that we’ve made something of our lives and …
Sep 1, 2016: The Three Stages of Every New Marriage As the ultimate Throwback Thursday, Alison and I are celebrating our four year wedding anniversary. We’re a very different family than we were on that …
Aug 30, 2016: Making Time for Prayer Over the past year, I’ve felt an increasing desire to incorporate more prayer time into my day. There’s something cathartic about quiet prayer time, …
Aug 25, 2016: Impeach Francis I seldom take the time to read editorials. While the premise is good, the execution scarcely follows through. They tend to be pejorative, one-sided, …
Aug 23, 2016: Making the Invisible, Visible Faith is a gift, and one that parents try to transmit to their children. Those who have a strong sense of faith understand how it acts as a level and …
Aug 9, 2016: The Fatal Flaw of Feminism Americans have a great tradition of rugged individualism. We have a heritage of self-reliance typified by the settlers on the Oregon Trail, or the …
Aug 4, 2016: The Joy of Two Children When Felicity arrived this Spring, I had just gotten a handle on how to deal with Benedict. Now a toddler, he’s incredibly bright and interactive. We …
Jul 28, 2016: Being Whom I Want to Be We all have within us the power and ability to shape who we are. From the media that we consume, the choices that we make, and the actives that we …
Jul 26, 2016: The Genius of the Family Experiential knowledge is the most valuable of all. When Alison and I went to the hospital to deliver our new daughter, we wanted what all parents …
Jul 21, 2016: Keeping Things Civil Every four years, we have a tremendous, Constitutionally guaranteed, opportunity to remind ourselves just how much we hate our neighbor. Twelve to …
Jul 19, 2016: Manage Your Care Having married a physician, most of my daily conversations revolve around the topic of medicine. It’s not a terrible set-up, as healthcare is a major …
Jul 14, 2016: The Rightful Place for Sex We love sex. We love it so much that sex has found itself in just about every quarter of our lives. It’s a weapon, a tool, a marketing strategy, a …
Jul 12, 2016: Respect People The Catholic Church’s position on life is unimpeachable. Every human person has inherent dignity and the right to live from the moment of conception …
Jul 7, 2016: I hate Facebook. So I did something about it. I recently received an email from Facebook congratulating me on my 10 year anniversary on the network. While I’m sure they had a heavily researched …
Jun 29, 2016: Sick of Reality TV Television programming has the unique ability to bring people together. Pursuing Twitter after an episode of “The Bachelor” or checking out the blogs …
Jun 14, 2016: Education Happens Everywhere One of the great tragedies of the American educational system is that it compartmentalizes learning. Learning and education, so it suggests, can only …
Jun 9, 2016: Inadequacies There are certain experiences that are universal to all parents. Children, regardless of culture and environment, all act in generally the same …
Jun 7, 2016: God, Hell, and Timeouts One of the areas of parenting that I didn’t anticipate being uncomfortable with is timeouts. I wouldn’t say that Benedict has a case of the terrible …
Jun 2, 2016: Sin Drags You Down I’m never more keenly aware of the physical effects of sin in my life than right after confession. I walk out of the Church with a great sense of …
May 31, 2016: Overwhelmed with Gratitude Life is full of grand adventure. Our emotions, and the circumstances around us, can cast us into profound sadness or propel us to extreme happiness. …
May 26, 2016: The Dinner Opportunity We tend to overlook the dinner opportunity. Thanks to the rise in popularity of cooking shows, I think we’re beginning to appreciate the role that …
May 24, 2016: If It’s Broken, Fix It If you take a careful look at the mass produced products on the market today, you’ll note just how disposable our culture has become. Cars are safer, …
May 19, 2016: Dad Life Lately I’ve developed a bit of an addiction to car care. I want our cars to last, so I try to wash them weekly and keep them clean. I’ve always been …
May 17, 2016: We’re Too Comfortable When it comes to fallen away Catholics, especially those who had a negative experience of the Church many years ago, it seems that each person has a …
May 12, 2016: Mastering Patience IKEA is not a store that I associate the virtue of patience with. Assembling the furniture is a task that tries me in so many different ways. We …
May 10, 2016: Personal Pride My neighbors love to sit outside and talk to one another. The other day, I was chatting with one of them, and he was telling me about his daughter who …
May 5, 2016: Failure to Communicate I often feel that our ability to communicate is falling into the trap of diminishing returns. New forms of communication, at their start, are very …
May 3, 2016: Gift Giving There are many ways to express your love to your wife. Using the words, doing some chores, caring for her after a long week, and even cooking dinner …
Apr 28, 2016: Enough Breaks Already It’s really easy to cut yourself too much slack. You laud praises on yourself for a good week’s worth of work and award yourself a day off. That day …
Apr 26, 2016: St. Joseph: Human Placing yourself in Bible stories is one of the most widely recommended spiritual exercises when it comes to the Scriptures. We’ve been given the …
Apr 21, 2016: Learning Happens Everywhere Learning is a life-long pursuit and chances are, at one point or another, you’re going to sign up for some program of study in your adult life. You …
Apr 19, 2016: Eliminate the Possibility A great struggle in the single life is the lack of permanence. When casually dating, playing the field, or even when you’re in a serious relationship, …
Apr 14, 2016: Vote Your Conscience When Virginia held its primary election on Super Tuesday this year, I found myself in a position that I had never been in before as a voter. Having …
Apr 13, 2016: Hopeful Anticipation I’m experiencing a noticeable difference between Alison’s first pregnancy and her second: I’m a lot more cool and controlled. With less than two …
Apr 11, 2016: Be Silly Benedict’s favorite part of the work week happens on Thursday mornings at our library. He absolutely loves story time. Even though we’ve only been …
Apr 7, 2016: Etiquette in Marriage I recently wrote about my thoughts on reading “Emily Post’s Essential Manners for Men: Second Edition.” In that post, I highlighted the three …
Apr 6, 2016: The Danger of Despair There are many obstacles to living a holy life. We must overcome our environment, our past choices, and even our own natural inclinations. While our …
Apr 4, 2016: Keeping Priorities Straight If you feel guilty spending time with your family instead of working, you need to adjust your priorities.
Mar 31, 2016: Being A True Servant Leader Servant leadership is a term that’s quite popular in management circles. It attempts to form leaders who care less about the power and more about …
Mar 30, 2016: Painful Reminders We’re all a bit detached from reality. We see ourselves in a certain light that tends to be a bit brighter than it actually is. At the very least, we …
Mar 28, 2016: Family Time Activities I love Spring. Nature reminds us of the joy and hope of new life and new growth and the season also signals the beginning of the outdoor season. Every …
Mar 24, 2016: Be You We all wear masks. We instinctively alter our behavior when we believe we’re being watched in order to match what we believe other people want. This …
Mar 23, 2016: How Am I Doing As A Parent? I enjoy systems and stability. I like to learn how to do something, experiment to find the most efficient process, and then implement that process …
Mar 17, 2016: Divorcing Faith and Work Over the past several decades, the pressure to divorce one’s faith from one’s work has become increasingly strong. We’ve done it for a very long time …
Mar 16, 2016: Discounting the Eucharist In my previous reflection on the intimacy of the Eucharist, I started to write about the insidious nature of complacency in the Catholic life, but …
Mar 14, 2016: The Poor Box Every moment is a teachable moment in a child’s life. What your children don’t realize is that as a parent, you’re constantly figuring out what to do. …
Mar 10, 2016: The Insidious Nature of Stress One of my greatest relational weaknesses is a knee-jerk reaction to place blame. It’s a quick reaction and one that’s rapidly subdued by logic and …
Mar 9, 2016: Give Locally Until recently, Alison and I didn’t really have a giving strategy. Each month, we’d go over the solicitations that we’d received from various causes …
Mar 7, 2016: Where Are Your Manners? I follow the work of Shawn Blanc pretty closely. Shawn is a writer based in Kansas City who does a variety of work and writing based on doing your …
Mar 3, 2016: The E Word One of men’s greatest flaws is our inability to express, process, or deal with emotions. We know two emotions: passion and anger. The depth of the …
Mar 2, 2016: Eucharistic Intimacy Your faith life has the potential to be the most intimate relationship in your life. It’s a relationship that you have 100% control over. God is …
Feb 25, 2016: How Will You Use Your Fresh Start? I love this time of year when I and every other writer on the Internet write about goals, resolutions, and fresh starts. It’s part meeting a …
Feb 24, 2016: Pursing A Daughter’s Heart I wanted a girl. When the ultrasound confirmed it, I was elated. Her name is Felicity and she’s arriving in June. My brother has two daughters, one …
Feb 22, 2016: Antonin Scalia: America’s Thomas More “In every interaction you have with people, you can either give them life or take some away.” -Toby Mac The passing of Justice Antonin Scalia is a …
Feb 18, 2016: A Balanced Social Life The interview season is in full swing for Alison. We’re about 18 months from graduation and her schedule is full of calls, phone interviews, and …
Feb 17, 2016: What Great Things Will You Do in 2016 I’ve asked you how you will use the fresh start that the New Year gives you, but today I want to ask you a different question. What great things …
Feb 16, 2016: Stay the Course If there’s one thing that we can count on, it’s change. Perfectly laid plans are disrupted by unforeseen events and suddenly, they …
Feb 15, 2016: The Entitled, Envious Millennials I read an interesting opinion article in the Wall Street Journal that took on the issue of a generation of disrespectful children. In the article, the …
Feb 11, 2016: Cutting Corners is Weak Personal integrity is a key component to success. In fact, America’s millionaires rated integrity as the number one reason for their success. …
Feb 10, 2016: Random Acts of Service Last Fall, Alison was on call one night at the hospital here in town. The proximity to our house to the hospital makes things both very convenient and …
Feb 9, 2016: A Rich Spiritual Life What does it mean to have a rich spiritual life? What would your day need to look like in order to achieve that life? We have daily needs in our …
Feb 8, 2016: The New Year Slump It’s about that time of year when people hit their New Year slump. The grand plans, resolutions, and goals have encountered the first wave of …
Feb 4, 2016: Life In Sync I once read that we ought to make a major decision once and then manage it daily. That’s decent advice. I want to live a life in sync where I …
Feb 3, 2016: Persistence Wins If you work long enough at something, you’ll see results and win. Persistence is the most helpful attribute that you can have when you’re …
Feb 2, 2016: Grading Your Performance It’s a good idea to think about your performance as a man and husband in terms of a grading scale. In days past, while you were still in school, you …
Feb 2, 2016: Honor Your Mother During the years when my dad was in the Air Force, he seemed to find himself frequently in jobs that deployed on a regular basis. As a fighter pilot, …
Feb 1, 2016: Why I’m Optimistic Inviting God into every aspect of your life is clearly an excellent idea. Having His help and guidance is like having a cheat code in life. There are …
Jan 28, 2016: Parenting is Innate This blog post was originally intended to be a reflection on how the beauty of shared parenting reveals the true design of parenthood. I was going to …
Jan 27, 2016: Long Term Thinking Life in the Collins household has been in full motion as of late. Just after Thanksgiving we bought a van and expanded to a two car family. Then, late …
Jan 26, 2016: The Sky Rarely Falls People have been predicting the end of the United States and the collapse of the dollar since the very beginning of our Nation. There are plenty of …
Jan 25, 2016: Why Marriages Fail One of the main roles in the household for husbands is to take care of all of the little details when it comes to maintenance and upkeep. Oil changes, …
Jan 21, 2016: Try New Things in Your Career The New Year presents many interesting possibilities. You have a blank canvas of twelve months to go out and do something new, unique, challenging, …
Jan 20, 2016: Be Social After Mass One of my favorite memories growing up was being social after Mass. This likely had more to do with the copious amounts of doughnuts available in the …
Jan 19, 2016: Inconvenient Times of Need If there’s one thing about marriage that’s true, it’s that your spouse often needs you when it’s most inconvenient. While not …
Jan 18, 2016: Broken Promises I’ve been struggling lately to defend my beliefs amid our culture shifts. It’s not that I think that I’m wrong, but it’s that …
Jan 16, 2016: Discipline Trickles Down Alison’s schedule around Holy Days is always a little tricky. Our parish generally offers sufficient Masses, but they don’t offer evening …
Jan 14, 2016: Minivans Earlier this year, Alison and I started discussing acquiring a minivan. We’ve been a one car family for about 18 months, but as we looked to the …
Jan 13, 2016: When to Quit Around this time of year, I’m always excited by the potential of the new year. I have a long list of things I want to try and do, and inevitably …
Jan 11, 2016: Plus Two We’re nearing the half-way mark of Alison’s pregnancy. This has been a very quick ride (for me, at least) compared to last time. I feel …
Jan 7, 2016: Keep in Touch I think that we have a tendency to discount work friendships. Work is not primarily a place to go to make new friends, but in the course of spending …
Jan 6, 2016: Parenting Requires Daily Adjustments A few months ago, I was one confused dad. As a first time parent, all of the development stages in Benedict’s life are new to me. As a man, …
Jan 5, 2016: Take A Break The biggest downside to being self-employed is that there’s no paid vacation. When I don’t work, I don’t get paid. This creates a …
Jan 4, 2016: 2016 Goals 2016 is officially here! As is my tradition, I wanted to share with you my goals for the upcoming year. Just as I did last year, my goals are balanced …
Dec 31, 2015: Pray for Those Who Persecute You But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. - Matthew 5:44 Jesus’ words always call us on to greater things, to be …
Dec 30, 2015: My Father’s Son My younger self would be very disappointed in me if he knew the truth. I like jazz. When I was in 4th grade, my dad got really into jazz and would …
Dec 29, 2015: Take Care of Your Things In our disposable culture, there are very few things left that are well made. Quality construction comes at a price, and consumers would rather pay …
Dec 28, 2015: A New Baby I’m happy to announce today that Alison and I are expecting our second child. After two amazing years with Benedict, we’re excited to …
Dec 24, 2015: Preserve Your Energy Negativity is the biggest drain on our energy. Every day we encounter plenty of rabbit holes to go down; negative news stories, clickbait links, and …
Dec 23, 2015: The Daily Struggle for Goodness When you’re trying to live a better life, a holier life, don’t expect evil to just roll over and take it. The struggle between God and the …
Dec 22, 2015: Setting Your Goals for 2016 I think that the most interesting aspect of goal setting is looking at them in hindsight. As I sit here looking at the goals that I set for myself, I …
Dec 21, 2015: A Christmas List Although Christmas is just a few days away, I wanted to share an idea with you that might make next year’s Christmas season a little bit less …
Dec 18, 2015: 2015: The Year of the Gazelle I absolutely love this time of year. The anticipation of Advent, the joy of sharing Christmas morning with my own little family, and a chance for all …
Dec 17, 2015: Turning Your Thoughts Back to God We have a lot of mentally idle time. Folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen, running errands, and even doing work that requires low levels of mental …
Dec 16, 2015: Food Diaries Are A Pain The tactic in weight management that I’ve found to be the most effective and also the most cumbersome is keeping a food diary. The concept is simple: …
Dec 15, 2015: Hell Isn’t For Me While I was in Drivers Ed, I learned a valuable lesson. Where your eyes go, the car goes. We’re playing the long game here on Earth. In the …
Dec 14, 2015: Raising Wholesome Kids My goal in raising Benedict is that he grow into a wholesome, mature man worthy of a great woman. The path to this ideal is filled with challenges, …
Dec 10, 2015: Drive Safely This Season As the cool fall air moved into the region, I made a concerted effort to get Benedict outside more. We ran around in the yard, cleaned up our garden, …
Dec 9, 2015: Everyone Craves Respect The Golden Rule should be the gold standard in human relationships, but my experience tells me it seldom is. I think we’re all a bit confused …
Dec 8, 2015: My Own Biggest Obstacle When your thirst for change exceeds the threshold of your objections, things start to happen. We all have a series of objections when it comes to …
Dec 7, 2015: Ask God for the Big Things Understanding God with the human mind is impossible. In order to help us bridge that gap into the impossible, we have to equate Him to something we …
Dec 3, 2015: Lean on God It’s human nature to want to be independent. We want to be free to make our own decisions and have the dignity of supporting ourselves. Our …
Dec 2, 2015: Change Requires Pain There’s something very real and raw about wanting to make changes in our lives. We all want to be better than we are today. We can see our …
Dec 1, 2015: Evil is Real How many times have we witnessed the great falls of those whom claim to be holy and religious? How many times have we heard of televangelists, …
Nov 30, 2015: A Family of Saints During this year’s Synod on the Family, Pope Francis canonized Louis and Marie-Azelie Martin, the parents of St. Therese. What’s …
Nov 26, 2015: Gratitude is at the Heart of the Christian Life Today, we celebrate the amazing Thanksgiving. Although this humble holiday tends to get trampled on by shopping deals and the upcoming Christmas …
Nov 25, 2015: In Heaven Together One of the best theological explanations of the Mass that I’ve ever heard is that when you’re at Mass, you’re drawn up into Heaven. …
Nov 24, 2015: Your Sacred Ring In the Catholic Church, we have aids that help to remind ourselves of God’s loving presence in our lives. We call these aids sacramentals. They are …
Nov 24, 2015: Starting Fresh We all love a fresh start. New beginnings are always full of hope, excitement, and promise. We feel refreshed, able to take on the world and whatever …
Nov 23, 2015: Disengage This Holiday Season I have a challenge for you this Thanksgiving and Christmas: disengage. I can see it now. You’re sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, the family is …
Nov 19, 2015: Never Rush Decisions It’s only when I rush into something that I get burned. Alison and I have recently been car shopping, which in and of itself is a time-pressured …
Nov 18, 2015: Giving Everything for Your Kids Love is a concept that’s been distorted and misunderstood. We all yearn to hear the words “I love you,” but few of us can comprehend …
Nov 17, 2015: We’re Not Guaranteed Any Time In the course of our human existence, we’re faced with tragedies, none more sorrowful than the untimely death of someone in our lives. We have a …
Nov 17, 2015: Change Starts At Home I want to live in a world that doesn’t have me in the center. I want to live in a world where men are celebrated. I want to live in a world where …
Nov 16, 2015: Vapid Music I’m fairly certain in every generation, as art pushes the boundaries of cultural norms and acceptability, there’s always a crowd of people …
Nov 12, 2015: A Powerful Confession Strategy I try to go to Confession once a month, but sometimes my schedule conspires against me. In early September, I was overdue and itching to go, which …
Nov 11, 2015: I Hate Car Dealers Alison and I are in the market for a new car. Well, we thought we wanted a car, but now we’ve decided on a van. A few weekends ago we spent a …
Nov 10, 2015: Getting Back on the Horse We underestimate the power of momentum. Momentum, as it builds, evolves into an unstoppable force. Decision making becomes easier when you step aside …
Nov 9, 2015: The Radical Early Christians For perhaps the first time in my life, I’m reading the Acts of the Apostles. Alison gave me the fantastic Ignatius Catholic Study Bible for …
Nov 5, 2015: Dating in the Married Life The ordinary needs to be challenged. In the days of dating your wife, there was much newness in the air. You were getting to know each other, it was …
Nov 4, 2015: Take Advantage of Financial Booms There’s nothing better than a family financial boom. Flush with cash, you and your spouse breathe a little easier, you dream a little more, and …
Nov 3, 2015: Why Mass Matters I don’t bother to read the surveys that pollsters do of Catholics. It turns into an exercise in, “I’m more Catholic than you,” …
Nov 3, 2015: Confession-phobia The fear of Confession is deadly. It’s healthy to have some amount of fear of the Sacrament. That fear means we know that we’ve seriously hurt God and …
Nov 2, 2015: Take Pride in Your Car Alison and I’s Prius is 10 years old this year. Well, technically, I guess it’s 11. We’ll soon cross the 250k mile mark and man, is …
Oct 29, 2015: Daily Grooming How we present ourselves to the world is an important aspect of live, and so making time for daily grooming is a must. To be fair, daily grooming can …
Oct 28, 2015: Rethinking Together Time Is residency over yet? With just under 18 months to go, I’m so done with all of this. Alison’s schedule, the shifting sands, and lack of …
Oct 27, 2015: Diligent Budgeting Diligent budgeting requires three distinct toolsets: allocating, tracking, and accounting. Although each toolset has its own challenges and …
Oct 26, 2015: Priests Are Superheroes If I were a priest, the standing weekly appointment that I’d most look forward to, and at the same time most dread, is Reconciliation. …
Oct 22, 2015: Christian Animosity Towards Catholics During Pope Francis' recent visit to the United States, I was inundated with news articles, Tweets, and Facebook posts about the Church, often from …
Oct 21, 2015: Prayer and Flowers This summer, Alison and I really got into gardening. We had an herb garden on our back porch along with assorted flowers, we had a small garden …
Oct 20, 2015: Every Election is Important We’re getting deep into the 2016 election, even though it’s more than a year away. The fields for both political parties are getting …
Oct 19, 2015: Things Will Never Make You Happy When there’s something that I want to buy, I tend to develop a laser-like focus on achieving that goal. I’ll work to find any way I can to …
Oct 15, 2015: Never Quit Quitters quit. In perhaps the most obvious statement ever made on this blog, I’ll state it again. People who are quitters quit things. The …
Oct 14, 2015: Parenting: Exhilarating and Exhausting Now that more of my friends are getting married and having kids, my Facebook timeline, or whatever we’re calling it now, is filled with pictures …
Oct 13, 2015: A Refuge in the World I don’t spend nearly enough time in Adoration. When I was in middle school, my mom and I were members of our local Nocturnal Adoration society. …
Oct 12, 2015: The Art of Compromise We live in a large society, and so the idea that we can have things exactly the way we want them is unrealistic. Even in our own marriages and …
Oct 8, 2015: Be Your Child’s Rock A father’s role in his children’s lives is unique. I’ve written before about how fathers are irreplaceable, but today I want to …
Oct 7, 2015: A Society That Doesn’t Read We live in a society that doesn’t read. In 2013 a quarter of Americans didn’t read a single book. Ouch. What a waste. (Author’s Note: It’s …
Oct 6, 2015: The Church Isn’t A Democracy The reporting and commenting on the Church these days is insufferable. I skip over most articles, including those in the Wall Street Journal because …
Oct 5, 2015: The Worst Time to Discern The absolute worst time to make a discernment is when you’re mired in sin. Yet, we do it all the time. Discernment isn’t just about the …
Oct 2, 2015: 3 Reasons to Pray the Rosary Daily The Rosary is an amazing prayer. While it may be easy to discount it as rote, there’s a real beauty in the repetition. There are compelling reasons …
Oct 1, 2015: The Gift of A Child’s Life Recently I’ve been looking back at old videos of Benedict. Man that kid was fat. What also strikes me is that knowing him today, I can totally …
Sep 30, 2015: The Lynchpin of Education Throughout the course of my education, I have had hundreds of teachers. I can say that, to the best of my recollection, only one didn’t have …
Sep 29, 2015: The Surprises of Being A Stay-At-Home Parent Now that I’ve been a full-time caregiver to Benedict (read “stay-at-home parent”) for just over a year, I can admit that it’s …
Sep 28, 2015: Enough About Sex Already I have zero interest in your sexual preferences. Frankly, it’s none of my business. Yet, we’ve become so fixated on everyone’s sexual …
Sep 24, 2015: Go Read the Documents If you have a question about what the Church teaches, just go read the documents. Start with the Catechism and then go and read supporting documents. …
Sep 23, 2015: Incredible Martyrs I’m encouraged by the stories of martyrs. Their fortitude in the face of unimaginable pain and sufferings is beyond inspiring. Truly their …
Sep 22, 2015: Finding Wholesome Programming Lately I’ve been really into movies, books, and TV shows based on real life Cold War era spies. History fascinates me. Some of the stories are …
Sep 21, 2015: Fear of Prison I wasn’t planning on revealing my biggest fear in life before an international radio audience, but I did. Earlier this summer, I was part of an …
Sep 18, 2015: Where Do You Send Your Thoughts? In a widely circulated Matthew Kelley talk, Matthew made the point that where you send your thoughts, your actions will follow. His point was that if …
Sep 17, 2015: Be Courageous When we think about courage, we often think about people overcoming all odds to accomplish something great. It may be an athlete reaching a new human …
Sep 16, 2015: Break Your Phone Addiction Alison and I are both up for phone upgrades this month. It was with great glee that I watched the Apple September media event, knowing that I’d …
Sep 14, 2015: The Sign of the Cross “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Several times a day, we open and close our prayers with the Sign of …
Sep 10, 2015: The Forgiving and Perfecting Eucharist It’s easy to fatigue on Catholic cliches. We use them ad nauseam until something beautiful and profound becomes trite. The thing is, while I’m …
Sep 9, 2015: The Gift of Private Confession I’m thankful for private confession. If I had to confess my sins publicly, in front of my own community, I probably wouldn’t seek out …
Sep 9, 2015: The Value of Sharing The world is an incredibly noisy place, even more so now that the Internet gives a bullhorn to anyone who wants one. There’s a great richness in this …
Sep 8, 2015: Keep the Fires Burning As Catholics, there are many things that we too easily take for granted. Our regular encounters with the Risen Christ begin to wash over us as …
Sep 7, 2015: The Speed of A Year The speed of time never ceases to amaze me. It seems like every time I blink a day, week, month, season, or year is over. Perhaps no season travels …
Sep 3, 2015: Believe in Yourself There’s a direct correlation between how successful you are and how diligently you work. The hardest workers get promoted the fastest, get the …
Sep 1, 2015: Cherish Your Father Benedict has started behaving like a two year old just a few months early. He’s usually loads of fun, but he can also test my patience. He’ll be …
Aug 31, 2015: A Culture that Respects Life We find ourselves, yet again, as Americans doing some serious soul-searching after last week’s incident of gun violence. Two young journalists …
Aug 27, 2015: Do the Essentials Daily schedules fluctuate a lot. Between work, appointments, shopping, and after-school activities, every day looks a little different. In fact, this …
Aug 26, 2015: Listen to Your Body I hate to admit it, but I’m losing ground to my migraines. Since they started in 2006, we’ve had an on again, off again relationship. At …
Aug 25, 2015: The Two Most Important Times of Day There are two critical times of interaction with your wife each day. They are the times are when you say goodbye in the morning and hello in the …
Aug 24, 2015: Cutting Your Schedule It’s said that the worst boss that you’ll ever work for is yourself. At one time or another, you may take on a side job in addition to the …
Aug 21, 2015: Coping with Loss It’s said that we tend to experience God in times of tribulation more than in our daily life. People who have no trials, sorrows, or sufferings …
Aug 20, 2015: Behind Every Great Warrior is A Great Family We owe a great debt to our current military members and to all veterans who’ve honorably served. While it’s plainly evident that their …
Aug 19, 2015: Vacations Without Your Kids Our children’s dependance on us is both proper and something that needs to be managed. It’s a wonderful thing that our children rely on us for …
Aug 18, 2015: How to Read the News Online news is both a blessing and a curse. You can get up-to-the minute updates, but oftentimes the initial reporting is wrong. You can read stories …
Aug 17, 2015: Persistance vs. Overwork As I sit down to write this post, I’m surrounded my mountains of stuff. My office is a complete wreck and frankly, I don’t work well …
Aug 14, 2015: Regroup Weekly I clean our house every Saturday, both inside and out. The laundry is done, the floor is vacuumed, the car is washed, the bathrooms are cleaned, and …
Aug 13, 2015: Resolve Conflicts Far too many of us carry around burdens that we don’t have to endure. Mistakes from the past haunt our daily lives and direct our actions. The …
Aug 12, 2015: Fighting Financial Fatigue Perhaps the most difficult struggle that any of us face in reaching our financial goals is the inevitable long journey it takes to reach them. Most of …
Aug 11, 2015: Know Your Story In the not too distant past, I didn’t care much about my family’s genealogy. I knew about my parents and my grandparents, and that was …
Aug 10, 2015: Walking for Health Earlier this year, as the temperatures began to rise and Spring poked its head out, Benedict and I started seeing more and more residents along our …
Aug 7, 2015: How to Move Past the Worst Mistakes Perhaps the most painful mistakes you or I will ever make will involve money. Bad buying decisions, late payments, or even bouncing a check are all …
Aug 6, 2015: How to Help Your Wife Live Her Dreams Alison has been accepted into a medical Natural Family Planning course later this year. I’m not sure how long this has been a dream of hers, but …
Aug 5, 2015: Stop Sin in its Tracks In aviation, all mishaps, crashes, and fatalities are the result of a chain reaction of decisions. Each link in the chain contributes to the overall …
Aug 4, 2015: Work Needs A Finish Line The line between on the clock and off the clock has been blurred beyond recognition. Today’s workforce is finding it increasingly difficult to …
Aug 3, 2015: Don’t Let Vice Kill You You’re likely a pretty good person. You go about your life doing the right thing every day. You have responsibilities to your wife and your …
Jul 31, 2015: The Beauty Around You This week will mark the eighth anniversary of this blog. We live in a hurried and distracted culture, one in which we assume that longevity means …
Jul 30, 2015: Are You Taking A Pay Cut? Spring is my favorite season. It’s used to be fall because I absolutely love cold, grey, steely October days. Yet, I’m a person who loves …
Jul 29, 2015: How to Spend More Time with Your Wife Earlier this year, during one of Alison’s many rotations, she was assigned to a hospital about 45 minutes away. Her shift was from 7am - 7pm …
Jul 28, 2015: Reinforce Family Values One of the most difficult challenges that parenting presents is passing on family values. If you value health, then don’t give your kids three …
Jul 27, 2015: The Secret to Winning Your Morning The past six months have been a time of great change in my daily routine. With Benedict now walking and the weather starting to get nice outside, …
Jul 24, 2015: One Trick to Love Your House More To say that our house has a yard would be a stretch. We have a patch of land next to our house that contains nothing but weeds. Certainly …
Jul 23, 2015: If You Don’t Understand, Do Nothing I’m very involved in the healthcare decisions of my family. I always ask lots of clarifying questions and want to make sure that I fully …
Jul 22, 2015: Traveling Parents Today I want to put out a challenge to travelers everywhere: be kind to parents with young children. The stresses of travel are only amplified when …
Jul 21, 2015: Try A Different Mass We all have personal preferences. Our personality usually shows forth when we choose to act on those preferences. For example, when it comes to …
Jul 20, 2015: Reset Occasionally I keep rigorous track of my goals throughout the year. I’ve mentioned before that I use the HabitList app on my phone in order to keep tabs on …
Jul 17, 2015: Open Wide the Doors Over the Memorial Day Weekend, Alison and I didn’t have much going on. She had to work on Saturday and we didn’t have any plans to go …
Jul 16, 2015: Kids Are Not A Burden Benedict has been sleeping less lately, meaning that he requires more entertainment during the day. He’s mostly satisfied if I’m at least …
Jul 15, 2015: Plan A Sunday Adventure While Alison and I moved to Virginia a little over a year ago, it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that we actually did some serious exploring in …
Jul 14, 2015: A Place for Everything I love living in a clean house. There’s something freeing about having wide open spaces with everything in its place. We all ensure that our homes are …
Jul 13, 2015: Small Blessings Lead You God’s plan for your life is multidimensional. Thousands of small events, shifts, and changes of plans lead you to the exact right spot, at the …
Jul 10, 2015: Cousin Time Earlier this Spring, I took Benedict to my aunt’s house for a play date. My aunt lives about 90 minutes away from us and three of her four …
Jul 9, 2015: Is Your Wife Your Only Friend? Admittedly, this is going to be a bit of an awkward post for me. While I wish I was living out the principles that I’m going to cover, I’m …
Jul 8, 2015: Fighting Weight Confession: I’ve let myself go. Since the beginning of the year, I’ve gained 15 lbs. Now, that’s not how that’s supposed to …
Jul 7, 2015: Do the Right Thing I once had a boss who told me that it’s never too late to do the right thing. Oftentimes when we realized that we’ve made a mistake, our …
Jul 6, 2015: Be A Brave Parent Most days, I’m surprised that I’m a father. Certainly Benedict has been in my life for nearly two years, yet actually being in these …
Jul 3, 2015: Dress Up for Mass Growing up, my family always dressed up for Mass. Though I recognize how expensive it must’ve been for my parents to dress three growing kids in …
Jul 2, 2015: Pride and Money Mistakes Money just might be the most personal thing in the world. Almost no other topic causes people to become defensive so quickly. After graduating from …
Jul 1, 2015: The Joy of Giving Earlier this year, while at the March for Life, Alison and I were approached by a man selling official event hats. Ordinarily, I don’t bother …
Jun 30, 2015: Let Go of Past Hurts I’m a grudge-holder. I don’t do it for all things, but when a particular relational infraction occurs, if it’s offensive enough, …
Jun 29, 2015: Celebrate Life One of the great tragedies of our modern era is our misunderstanding of the value of children. For a wide range of reasons, people tend to hold a very …
Jun 26, 2015: Be Neighborly I have a terrible track record of being neighborly. In the five years since moving out on my own, I’ve really only been friendly with one …
Jun 25, 2015: Endure Misery Life is full of a range of emotions. There are days when we’re over the moon and others when we’re down in the dumps. There are events …
Jun 24, 2015: The Best Thing About Permanence Marriage is designed to last. While that’s a simple statement, the implausibility of the construct makes it an enigma. How can two completely …
Jun 23, 2015: Fighting Impatience Several times a week, I fail to reach the high Catholic Husband standard. Being the husband that I was made to be is indeed a very high bar and one …
Jun 22, 2015: Embrace Confession In what I suspect is a universal experience among Catholics, I always get nervous in the Confession line. Despite my years of frequenting the …
Jun 19, 2015: Nocturnal Adoration When I was in Middle School, my Mom and I signed up for the local chapter of the Nocturnal Adoration Society. Once a month, we’d get up and go …
Jun 18, 2015: Quality Time Takes Time The difference between men and women becomes abundantly clear when it comes to quality time. For men, quality time is like any other allocated time …
Jun 17, 2015: Staying On Budget Going over budget is never a good thing. Not only does it mean that you have to find the money somewhere else, it also means that you’ll experience a …
Jun 16, 2015: How to Deal with Traffic Our National Driver’s Education curriculum needs to be overhauled. At least half of the teaching time needs to be devoted to courtesy on the …
Jun 15, 2015: Give to the Beggar Earlier this summer, Alison’s family was in town and we made the trek into DC. While there, I was particularly struck with the number of beggars …
Jun 12, 2015: Blazing Your Own Path I wish I had started my web design business back in college. The free enterprise system and the American Dream are built on the idea that if you can …
Jun 11, 2015: Be Emotionally Present Growing up, one of the staples of my day happened just before bed. As I lay in bed, my dad would come into my room and we’d have a …
Jun 10, 2015: Deck Life Our townhouse has a small and very cheap deck built onto the back. It doesn’t sit very high off the ground and the wood is in terrible shape. It …
Jun 9, 2015: Drink More Water Growing up, my Dad drank a lot of water. So much so, that he had a Brita filter in the refrigerator that was for his use only. Of course, that rule …
Jun 8, 2015: Rest vs. Idleness Idle hands are the Devil’s tools, yet God rested on the 7th day. Rest and idleness are very close cousins and it can be difficult to figure out …
Jun 5, 2015: Dad the Driver Family road trips are the stuff of legend. Earlier this year, Alison, Benedict, and I rented a van and made the 12 hour drive to Michigan. It was my …
Jun 4, 2015: Refuse to Fall There comes a point in our lives when we have to stand up to sin. Sin, both great and small, has the ability to divert us away from the path that we …
Jun 3, 2015: Know Your Mother I find it easier to understand God’s surpassing mercy now that I am a parent. The love that I feel for Benedict, and my deep seated desire to do …
Jun 2, 2015: Relentless Positive Action While I was living in Michigan, I was particularly impressed with the Governor’s mantra, “Relentless positive action.” When he was …
Jun 1, 2015: Take Care of Your Home I’ve gotten into a bad habit lately, where I ignore most of my daily to-dos for the sake of getting more work done. While it does feel good to …
May 29, 2015: Struggling with Focus The reality of the finite nature of time is never more apparent than when you’re doing something that you really love. For whatever reason, time …
May 28, 2015: Take Advantage of Living Close Thankfully, for the nearly three years of our marriage, Alison and I have always lived close to family. That wasn’t my experience growing up as my …
May 27, 2015: Respect Your Limits We all have limiting factors in our lives. It may be a health issue, fear, past hurts, or even bad relationships. These limits place constraints on …
May 26, 2015: Humble Yourself Humility may be the most unpopular virtue. We all love interacting with humble people and we enjoy their company, yet we can’t bear being humble …
May 25, 2015: Be Okay Being Alone It used to be that I’d take my regular walks alone. Before Benedict arrived, and even in his first few months of life, while it was bitterly …
May 22, 2015: Never Miss An Opportunity Throughout any given day, we have plenty of opportunities to do the right thing. Several months ago, I was grocery shopping when I saw a man in a …
May 21, 2015: Spiritual Springs Growing up, my grandparents’ house was our vacation destination of choice. My Dad was often stationed on the East Coast, so the trip to south Georgia …
May 20, 2015: Get Your Wife to Heaven If you want to be a really good husband, direct all of your actions towards getting your wife into Heaven. Essentially, that’s our mission in …
May 19, 2015: Sin Isn’t A Foregone Conclusion There are many myths surrounding sin. These myths are lies that we’ve either told ourselves or have entered into our mind in some other way, …
May 18, 2015: Thank A Vet Five words are all it takes to make the difference in a service member’s life. We see men and women all the time who are either currently …
May 15, 2015: Be Great, No Matter What Last Fall, I wrote about To Kill A Mockingbird and the great scene where Atticus explains to his daughter that he has to have integrity, that he has …
May 14, 2015: With Your Help I’m not God. I didn’t rise from the dead of my own volition. I didn’t save countless souls from Hell, open the gates of Heaven, or …
May 13, 2015: It’s Okay to Rest Go, go, go, go. The frantic pace of our lives has gotten really out of control. We run all day at work, only to get home and have precious few hours …
May 12, 2015: Marriage and Patience A few weeks ago, Alison and I went to a live radio show. That sentence felt weird to type, but it’s true. We traveled into Washington, DC to be …
May 11, 2015: Am I Doing Enough? It’s been a year since I started caring for Benedict full time. It’s almost hard to believe not just that a year has passed, but how …
May 8, 2015: Finding Time to Pray My daily prayer time is often a moving target. Depending on what the day has in store for me, I could find myself praying at any number of junctures …
May 7, 2015: Look to St. Joseph One of the traditions in my line of Collins men is that each of us share the same middle name, Joseph. It’s a tradition that started at least …
May 6, 2015: Relational Fresh Air If on your Wedding Day you expected your marriage to be full of positive emotions and the warm fuzzies, you may by now have found yourself …
May 5, 2015: One Step Closer to Holiness The battle for self-control is one that’s waged daily. We’re constantly being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, we want to do …
May 4, 2015: Do Something Amazing this Summer Believe it or not, the summer months are upon us! Schools will soon be shuttering their doors for the season and temperatures will continue to rise, …
May 1, 2015: How to Allocate Charitable Dollars I love the hum of the mail truck. Although we live on a busy street, there’s a particular sound that the mail truck makes as it rumbles down the …
Apr 30, 2015: Sunday Afternoons I love Sunday afternoons. Many people don’t really like them since they start to feel the Monday creep, but for me, I find them to be incredibly …
Apr 29, 2015: You’re Irreplaceable One June evening in 1996, I was almost left without a father. My dad was deployed in Saudi Arabia when the barracks next to his was bombed by …
Apr 28, 2015: Book Review: Marriage Last December, during one of our regular visits to my parent’s house, my dad handed me a book of his to read. This happens from time to time; a …
Apr 27, 2015: Editing Friendships College is the gilded age of friendships. At no other point in your life are you more fully immersed in your peer group. You live together en masse, …
Apr 24, 2015: Confront Fear One of the more popular topics in the blogosphere lately is fear. More and more, people who’ve achieved some degree of celebrity have turned the …
Apr 23, 2015: 3 Ways to Pamper Your Wife this Weekend Weekends are a great time for some TLC. After a long week, often spent apart, the weekends afford us down time to spend as we please with our family. …
Apr 22, 2015: At Home in Church I try to make it to Confession at least once a month and typically end up making it about twice per month. With the long lines at my parish, I have …
Apr 21, 2015: Managing Notifications A few weeks ago, I noticed a drop in my productivity. I took a few days to consider the root cause of why I wasn’t being as productive as I …
Apr 20, 2015: Valentine’s Day Isn’t Over I made a huge mistake last year. In honor of Alison’s birthday, I coordinated among our family to give her an awesome present: her own coffee …
Apr 17, 2015: Be Aware of Your Example One of the books that I’ve read this year was Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People by Truett Cathy. The book was Truett’s way of sharing …
Apr 16, 2015: The Burden of Freedom Freedom is a wonderful thing. Since you’re reading this, you’re one of the lucky ones who has the freedom to use the Internet. You have …
Apr 15, 2015: For Granted In life, it becomes incredibly easy to take things for granted. Small joys and simple pleasures tend to melt into the background after their initial …
Apr 14, 2015: Peace Starts at Home When we were younger, my brother and I fought. A lot. This was to the benefit of my sister, since our punishment was typically to work together …
Apr 13, 2015: Humility in Marriage Marriage is unlike anything else in our world. It’s a relationship that cannot be fully comprehended without entering into one, and its many …
Apr 10, 2015: Prepare for Adventure I don’t know where I’ll be living in two years. In fact, I can only think of one other time in my life when I lived in a house for more …
Apr 9, 2015: Praying for Kids Vocations A few weeks ago, Alison called me on her way home from the hospital. She was listening to Catholic radio and the host had suggested that parents pray …
Apr 8, 2015: Giving All of You Earlier this year, Mark Hart from Life Teen was on Lino Rulli’s The Catholic Guy Show right after Super Bowl Sunday. Mark, an avid sports fan, …
Apr 7, 2015: Integrate with Your In-Laws One of the biggest changes for any newly married couple is feeling out the relationship with your in-laws. In-laws get a bad rap, some rightfully so. …
Apr 6, 2015: Complex Sexual Histories Recently, I’ve been considering the role of men in the family life. It’s a complex issue, and one that no longer has consensus among the …
Apr 3, 2015: Stop Joking About Marriage A few weeks ago, I was getting my hair cut. The barber asked what I did, and I told him that I’m a writer and that I write about Christian marriage. …
Apr 2, 2015: Nip Problems in the Bud We all have a bit of a flair for the dramatic. While we may despise personal conflict, we’re a bit partial to the excitement and the unknown that the …
Apr 1, 2015: Even Jesus was Tempted I hate temptation. It’s always so exciting and alluring, especially if I give it any attention at all. All temptation needs is a moment of …
Mar 30, 2015: Respect Women Sex sells, even when it’s irrelevant. Watching commercials during the Super Bowl underscores this interesting point. Advertisers and companies …
Mar 27, 2015: Invest in Your Kids Although Benedict is recently beginning to prefer walking to crawling, I’ve already begun to plan out all of the activities and hobbies that I …
Mar 26, 2015: Staring Down Medical Problems In life, there may be nothing more disruptive than a major medical problem. Whether it’s one that you’re facing, or one that someone in …
Mar 25, 2015: Adult Report Cards When I was in high school, in my Junior and Senior year, I was introduced to something truly horrible. It was a system called EdLine and it gave my …
Mar 24, 2015: The Joy of Serving In the not too distant past, I engineered my weekly routine to involve cleaning a single room of the house every day. Since I spend almost all of my …
Mar 23, 2015: Intent Matters in Sex One of the best books on the argument for marriage the way that we understand it is What is Marriage?: A Man and Woman: A Defense by Ryan Anderson, …
Mar 20, 2015: Turn Off the News Since late last summer, I’ve had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. It’s my first newspaper subscription, having before gotten the majority of …
Mar 19, 2015: Two Years of Service Today is an amazing day! Two years ago today, I pressed the big green button and Catholic Husband went live. Now two years into our 100 year mission, …
Mar 18, 2015: Read to Your Children A routine is perhaps the greatest tool in the toolbox of parenting. Kids do wonderfully with routines. Not only do they provide consistency, but they …
Mar 17, 2015: The Rise of Divorce I’ve recently started working on a family genealogy project. In the past, I hadn’t much cared about my family’s history beyond my …
Mar 16, 2015: When is it Enough? The lives of the saints are a great mystery to us. How is it that ordinary men and women, both lay and religious, can slip the surly bonds of sin and …
Mar 13, 2015: Read God’s Book Last Fall, Alison, Benedict, and I traveled to my cousin’s wedding. While there, I saw one of those ubiquitous Catholic media CD displays in the …
Mar 12, 2015: Drop Everything for Her When Benedict is in the family room playing, anytime he hears the locks on the front door turning, he’ll stop and say, “Mama.” This …
Mar 11, 2015: Missing Alison Alison’s work schedule is, at times, a real challenge for me. On her month of nights, she’d be at home and awake from about noon to 5pm …
Mar 10, 2015: Idle Hands I recently watched an interview with a Benedictine monk done by a local TV station out West. They were profiling this monk and his jam-making business …
Mar 9, 2015: Fight the Creeping Bulge Winter is hard on me. During the spring, summer, and fall, I’m a regular exerciser. Benedict and I can be seen on our 4 mile circuit almost …
Mar 6, 2015: Be Full of Surprises A few days before Valentine’s Day, my sister texted me asking what my plans were. “Are you going to write Alison a love letter and draw …
Mar 5, 2015: Make Time to Read There are limitless ways for us to use our free time during the day, but most activities leave us feeling empty. Watching a TV show can be …
Mar 4, 2015: Play with Your Kids As I look back on the pictures of Benedict from his first year of life, I’m suddenly very aware of the fact that not too long ago, he …
Mar 3, 2015: The World Needs Fathers We’re living in a very confusing time. For whatever reason, we’ve stopped seeing people as uniquely beautiful, each with something to …
Mar 2, 2015: An Undivided Heart When I was in college, I loved dating. I went on dates with many women, was in a relationship with a few, and married one of them. It’s a …
Feb 27, 2015: Daily Prayer List We all have many things in our lives that we like to pray for. A list of intentions floats around in each of our minds and it changes constantly. New …
Feb 26, 2015: Don’t Press Snooze I have three layers of alarms each morning. My Fitbit has 3 silent alarms scheduled each morning for 4:55am, 4:57am, and 4:59am. At those times, it …
Feb 25, 2015: Forget About Being Right There are many commonly held beliefs about marriage that I refuse to subscribe to. Over the past two years, they’ve been weaved into many of the …
Feb 24, 2015: Three Ways to Improve Date Night Now that Alison’s internship is starting to wind down and she’s finished with her examinations and their associated preparations, …
Feb 23, 2015: Your Role As Husband The role of husband is perhaps the most challenging role that any man faces. As a single man, the world was your domain. You chose your coming and …
Feb 20, 2015: Support Our Priests Growing up, priests were a constant presence in my house. My parents were very diligent in cultivating relationships with the priests at our parish, …
Feb 19, 2015: Sublime Forgivness The struggle with the Sacrament of Confession is a lifelong one for Catholics. Our struggle is a deeply human one in that the Sacrament requires us to …
Feb 18, 2015: How to Grow this Lent Unbelievably, today is Ash Wednesday. In just a few hours, the hunger pangs will start to set in as we observe the first of two fasting days this …
Feb 16, 2015: Our Political Role Today we observe President’s Day and I think it’s an excellent time for us to consider our political role. There’s been a large shift over …
Feb 13, 2015: Our Diocese’s Best Kept Secret When you have a new baby, everything in the world is wonderful. A long 10 months of hopeful anticipation culminates in you finally getting to hold …
Feb 12, 2015: Falling Forward in Lent With Lent just around the corner, another opportunity for us to refocus our energies and prayer life on God is about to arrive. Lent provides an …
Feb 11, 2015: The Secret of Service When you reach a certain level in a company, one of the perks that you may be given is an administrative assistant. The job of your admin is to take …
Feb 10, 2015: Do Valentine’s Day Right —PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT— WARNING! Valentine’s Day is in 4 days. WARNING! As a man, you might be tempted to think that Valentine’s Day …
Feb 9, 2015: Honor the Dead Today is the 12th anniversary of my maternal Grandfather’s death. It’s a special day for me because I had the privilege of being with him when …
Feb 6, 2015: Have Clear Motivations There are a lot of things that I’d like to do. Almost every day, I get a new idea for some project or goal that I’d like to work on. It …
Feb 5, 2015: Avoid Whatever Leads You to Sin I’m usually not very forgetful, but there’s one time that I am. During Confession, after the priest says “Now say your Act of …
Feb 2, 2015: The Benefit of Catholic Schools Last week, we celebrated Catholic Schools Week. While this post would’ve been much more appropriate had I posted it then, the editorial calendar …
Jan 31, 2015: End Month One If you can believe it, we’ve already reached January 30th. Yes, just 30 short days ago we all experienced the hope, newness, and excitement of …
Jan 29, 2015: Room to Breathe We all need a little wiggle room. In the course of a week, most of your time is spoken for. Living an overly burdened schedule can lead to exhaustion, …
Jan 28, 2015: There Will Be Stress In marriage you share everything, including stress. You won’t find that little jewel printed on any brochure and you most likely didn’t …
Jan 27, 2015: The Importance of Stable Sleep The best indicator of how well your day is going to go is how well you slept last night. Sleep is the biggest contributor to your overall health, your …
Jan 26, 2015: Make this Lent Matter It’s hard to believe, but in a little over three weeks, we’ll begin our annual journey called Lent. While Easter is the biggest liturgical …
Jan 23, 2015: Love Letters from the Past Recently, I went through all of my Facebook messages and deleted old conversations. I’ve never been big into using Facebook messages for …
Jan 22, 2015: Why We March Today marks both a sobering anniversary and a special anniversary. Today is the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that …
Jan 21, 2015: Showing Tenderness I love Benedict. I love the way he laughs uncontrollably as I hold his arms above his head and tickle his tummy with my nose. I love the way he gets …
Jan 19, 2015: Hospital for Sinners It’s no secret that I love the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I don’t love the feelings of anxiety while waiting in line, but I love what it …
Jan 16, 2015: Motivate Yourself 2015-01-16 The New Year is always a popular time for fitness goals. Setting a fitness goal for yourself in 2015 is a brilliant idea. Your goals should …
Jan 15, 2015: Be A Thought Leader There are two types of leaders in your company: the named leaders and the thought leaders. The named leaders are the usual suspects. They have …
Jan 14, 2015: Beat the Devil Out of You No one likes being a failure. We all have that one sin that we’re dying to beat. I bet yours came right to mind. I know mine did. I’m not …
Jan 13, 2015: Kids are Raised by the Community Mass has become a bit of a struggle. For whatever reason, I didn’t anticipate that Benedict would reach an age where he can’t be …
Jan 12, 2015: Why You Should Do Your Job Well There seems to be a natural tension between employee and employer. At the company I was at before, though widely known for its many good works in the …
Jan 8, 2015: Tell Your Kids Their Story These days, things are changing rapidly in the world of Benedict. He’s getting pretty good a mimicking, a few new words come out of his mouth …
Jan 7, 2015: Small Changes Yield Big Results So many things in our lives are fully within our control. We control our emotions, reactions, and how we treat people. Over time, it can become …
Jan 5, 2015: Family Traditions Growing up, I lacked, in a certain sense, roots. Most children get to experience what I like to call the “Tree House Childhood.” They grow …
Jan 2, 2015: The Constancy of God We’ve all experienced a time of great betrayal in our lives. An instance when we were comfortable and happy in our world, only to have it turned …
Jan 1, 2015: My 2015 Goals The New Year is here! 2014 is over and gone and 2015 has officially arrived. I love the newness and promise of a new year. It’s a blank canvas, …
Dec 31, 2014: Reclaiming Peace Our lives are filled with boundless triumphs and difficult trials. If you look back at the past 10, 15, or even 20 years of your life, there were …
Dec 30, 2014: Why Resolutions Fail We’re very rapidly approaching 2015 and with it, the onslaught of New Year’s Resolutions. Year after year, people make promises to themselves that …
Dec 29, 2014: Better Understand Your Budget We love to hate budgets. It can be annoying to do them, we always forget to add things, and they’re nearly unrecognizable at the end of the month. The …
Dec 26, 2014: How to Schedule Family Time As families grow and mature, they all face the same essential problem: with all of the different schedules, how do we spend time together? More …
Dec 25, 2014: Christmas Reflection Merry Christmas! The days of preparation of Advent are over and we’re now finally celebrating the birth of Christ. I had a particularly …
Dec 24, 2014: Eat for Success As a husband, your health takes on a new importance. As a single man, it didn’t matter much whether you were at the top of your game or slacking off. …
Dec 23, 2014: Time Management for Kids Kids today are operating under very tight time constraints. While the number of potential activities continues to rise, what’s also driving this boom …
Dec 22, 2014: Take Vacation I want to begin this post by noting that I’m on vacation all this week. There will, of course, be new posts and some social media updates, but I won’t …
Dec 19, 2014: Clean House, Happy Wife I love a clean house and a fresh start in the morning. I get up and work for about two hours until Benedict stirs and demands breakfast. Lately, I’ve …
Dec 17, 2014: Live A Saintly Life When it comes to fitness, it’s easy to tell when you’re out of bounds. That fateful day when you hop up on the scale and the number shocks you is the …
Dec 16, 2014: Sex Isn’t Just for the Bedroom It’s quite easy to see that we’ve really got a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of sex. On one side of the spectrum, there’s the pervasive …
Dec 15, 2014: Caring for A Sick Child There are many powerful acts of love and service. These acts force us into uncomfortable and inconvenient situations. However, it’s not usually the …
Dec 12, 2014: Surround Your Marriage with Friends The life of a young single person is filled with friendships of all degrees. Think back to your college days and the boundless number of friends that …
Dec 11, 2014: Outsmart Temptation Temptation is a fork in the road. We either freely choose to avoid sin, or we freely choose to commit sin. Temptation in and of itself isn’t …
Dec 10, 2014: Planning for A Better Marriage in 2015 A lifetime together is a journey of 1,000 miles. Each day, you take small steps forward and, some days, you simply make no progress. We all want to be …
Dec 8, 2014: How Our Budget Committee Works Alison and I have been married for 26 months. That means that our Budget Committee has assembled 26 times to write 26 different budgets. There have …
Dec 5, 2014: Men Do Manly Things It seems that there’s a natural hesitation among men to engage in any activity that’s determined to be primarily for women. We don’t really craft, we …
Dec 4, 2014: Out of Sight Should Be Kept Out of Mind A few weeks ago, Alison, Benedict and I attended my sister’s wedding in Pittsburgh. Maree’s wedding was particularly special because of its location. …
Dec 3, 2014: Why Big Tech is Wrong I saw an article a few weeks ago that both Apple and Facebook were expanding their employee benefits programs to include the freezing of women’s eggs …
Dec 2, 2014: Make Her Bedtime Better The way in which we prepare for bed directly affects how much time we spend tossing and turning. With the right moves, you can significantly increase …
Dec 1, 2014: Don’t Bury Your Talent I used to work for a non-profit. My job was to go into communities and start youth programs. The biggest obstacle I faced every time I tried to get a …
Nov 28, 2014: The Divine Office: What is it? The Divine Office is the universal prayer of the Church. It’s also know as the Liturgy of the Hours or the Breviary. Ordained priests, deacons, and …
Nov 26, 2014: 3 Steps to Help You Reach Your Financial Goals Setting goals is hard. Reaching financial ones is even more difficult. Money flows in and you instantly want to spend it. How do you balance the …
Nov 25, 2014: What to Do When Your Want to Add Something New Time is finite. Each day, we have just 24 hours to spend on our pursuits. Between 6 and 8 of those hours are dedicated to sleep, leaving us about 16 …
Nov 21, 2014: Priorities Matter Our lives are full of priorities. Some things are simply more important than others. Making the right choices can drastically improve your quality of …
Nov 20, 2014: Grow in Patience Patience is a virtue that I’m not very good at. Patience is a great virtue to have. It allows you to be kind to a customer service representative when …
Nov 20, 2014: Maximizing Your Time How you spend your day is important. Each day there are gaps of time that could be put to better use. You already have a daily routine and it might be …
Nov 18, 2014: Your Ideal Day “Begin with the end in mind” is excellent advice. If you’re able to visualize a project at its completion, you can better understand the steps you …
Nov 14, 2014: Primary Devotion The Church is a wide and open road. While there are essential components of the spiritual life, such as the Sacraments, the Church provides limitless …
Nov 13, 2014: Disbelief with Faith As a part of the Catholic Church, we are members of an extraordinary community. We routinely have miracles happen within our group. We have relics …
Nov 12, 2014: Why Do You Go to Mass? Why do you go to Mass? In our lives, the intent behind an action is sometimes more important than the action itself. What are your motivations? …
Nov 10, 2014: Grace Grace is a gift. It’s given freely to us by God, available to us the moment we choose to accept it. What does the decision to accept or reject grace …
Nov 6, 2014: Block Out “You” Time We all need margin in our lives. Finding that margin can be difficult, but it needs to be a priority. I love productivity hacks and I love planning my …
Nov 5, 2014: IKEA Builds More than Furniture IKEA just might be the greatest store in the world. The entire showroom is a playground for adults (and kids, too!). When you walk through the aisles, …
Nov 4, 2014: Family Time on a Weeknight Family life is central to the Catholic experience. While we gather as a community to celebrate the Sacraments, the majority of the Church’s work …
Oct 31, 2014: The Best Way to Make it Up to Her There are many times in our relationships that we make mistakes. There are times when we don’t love her as we should or when we hurt her. We try to …
Oct 30, 2014: Cherish Your Family The life of a family is one of seasons. There’s the season before a couple has children. There’s the season when they have young children. There’s the …
Oct 29, 2014: No Shortcuts A few weeks ago, we heard at Mass the Gospel in which Peter tried to get Jesus to skip the Passion. Shockingly (or it should be quite shocking), Jesus …
Oct 27, 2014: Spend One-on-One Time with Your Kids Growing up in a military family, my dad was constantly deployed. He’d be gone for 3-6 months at a time, leaving my mom alone to wrangle us three kids. …
Oct 24, 2014: Making Time for Playtime Kids grow up too fast. As parents, we have the privilege of experiencing their daily growth. As a part of this experience, the days can quickly and …
Oct 23, 2014: Handmade Gifts Come from the Heart The tradition of giving gifts to friends and loved ones at Christmas is a centuries old tradition. Unfortunately, it’s been targeted by retailers who …
Oct 22, 2014: Make A Pilgrimage There’s an ancient practice in Christianity that’s lost some of its spice. That’s the practice of making pilgrimages. While the other two great …
Oct 21, 2014: The Power of Discipline In the moment, discipline is never pleasant. Once the occasion has passed, we all love its benefits. Discipline is the difference between a complete …
Oct 20, 2014: Quiet Time Together There’s a belief that whenever spouses have “together time,” they should be actively chatting or interacting. As humans, we need our quiet time to …
Oct 17, 2014: Bedroom As Sacred Space We have many rooms in our homes, but perhaps the most curious is the bedroom. We have an entire room, sometimes per person, dedicated solely to …
Oct 16, 2014: Going the Extra Mile for Her You can’t be a minimalist husband. Marriage demands something more. Marriage demands all that you have. Marriage demands your best because your wife …
Oct 15, 2014: Family Walks One of the best things that your family can do together is take an evening walk. Not only is a walk in the evening a great stress reliever, it can …
Oct 13, 2014: Use the Church Life can be a challenging journey. While we have amazing highs, we also have deeply dark lows. Part of the splendor of the Church, and being a member …
Oct 10, 2014: Mass Journal What would it be like if at every Mass you attended, you had a breakthrough moment? What would it be like if at every Mass something impacted you in a …
Oct 9, 2014: How to Ease into Daily Prayer Any time you try to establish a new habit, the best implementation is gradual. If you start too quick, you’ll peter out. If you start too slow, you’ll …
Oct 8, 2014: What if We Lived the Way We Ought? When did being pious start being perceived as pretentious? Benedict has recently gotten onto a very structured sleep-wake-play schedule. This change …
Oct 7, 2014: Kids at Mass There’s an ongoing debate in the Catholic Church about what should be done with children who make noises during Mass. To some, it’s a needless …
Oct 6, 2014: My Favorite Part of Fatherhood I love my son. He’s 11 months now and really knows how to get around. During the day, we have a few blocks of time that I loosely call free-play. For …
Oct 3, 2014: How to Fight with Your Wife Fights in your marriage will happen. They will range in severity, but, from time to time, you will have a serious disagreement with your wife. There’s …
Sep 29, 2014: Get Off the Broken Road Our spiritual walk is a marathon, not a sprint. That means that there are going to be a lot of times when you’re doing things right, and a lot of …
Sep 26, 2014: Faith of the Martyrs I have a difficult time imagining a physical persecution of happening in the United States. I have difficulty imagining how far we’d have to fall to …
Sep 25, 2014: Be Merciful We all love mercy when we’re the recipient. When we’re the giver, however, it’s much more difficult. I’m both intrigued and terrified by Benedict. I’m …
Sep 24, 2014: Be A Saint, Now I think that we have a pretty unhealthy view of Heaven. I’d venture to guess that most Catholics, myself included, take the St. Augustine view… “Lord …
Sep 23, 2014: Fun in Your Community One of the tragedies of our technological world is that we’ve stopped using our local resources. To celebrate our anniversary this year, Alison and I …
Sep 22, 2014: Pray and Don’t Worry Prayer and worry are incompatible. If you pray and then worry, your prayer is cancelled out. Prayer is the first step of faith. One of my favorite …
Sep 19, 2014: Be Transparently Catholic In the 8th grade, I read the great American Classic, To Kill A Mockingbird. One of the scenes in the book that has stuck with me all of these years is …
Sep 18, 2014: Why You Should Wake Up at 5am 5am is early. As I write this, it’s 5:19am and I’ve been up for 25 minutes. It seems crazy. There really isn’t much of a need for me to be up this …
Sep 17, 2014: 2 Years In Two weeks ago, Alison and I celebrated our two year wedding anniversary. I’d like to share with you a few thoughts about what I’ve learned so far. …
Sep 15, 2014: Dear Benedict, Live Purely Dear Benedict, I wanted to write you this letter because it’s my responsibility to help you grow into the man that you were made to be. You were …
Sep 4, 2014: Why You Should Meditate I think one of the most devastating things in our modern era is that we’ve stopped being a reflective people. Instead of taking time to think about …
Sep 3, 2014: How to Avoid Wasting Afternoons Wasting time is a waste of time. I hate afternoons or evenings where I just sit around watching TV for 2 or 3 hours. Of course, I’m not just watching …
Sep 2, 2014: You’re A Chef There are times in the married life when we need to take risks. As men, we don’t like failing. If we can’t do something perfectly the first time, we …
Aug 28, 2014: 101 Ways to Love We all want to be someone great. But do we have the courage to be more than average? When I turned 14, my parents gave me the gift of flight. My dad …
Aug 27, 2014: Make Her A Hero Words have power. Words have the ability to build someone up or strike someone down. They have the power to reveal someone’s innermost thoughts or …
Aug 26, 2014: Lead Your Children by Example The responsibility of parenthood lies not so much in the direct instruction of children, but more so in setting the right example. A few weeks ago, …
Aug 25, 2014: In Marriage, Time Doesn’t Equal Success In your lifetime, you’ll try many new things. You’ll be an amateur at a lot of hobbies. More important than experience, however, is confidence. I’ve …
Aug 21, 2014: Meet A Saint We’re card carrying members of the Communion of Saints. While we spend quite a bit of time rubbing elbows with fellow members on this planet, how much …
Aug 20, 2014: Schedule A Fast Day We fast twice per year, both days during Lent. Out of the 365 days of the year, 363 are essentially a food fest. So why does the Church ask us to …
Aug 19, 2014: Take Control of Your Health There are some things in the world that we have absolute control over. Your health is one of them. We all have soft spots in our health. We have …
Aug 18, 2014: How to Start Your End of Day Conversations Questions are powerful. Through the power of questioning, you can open up a whole new world. You learn about people, who they are, their unique story …
Aug 14, 2014: Keeping Family Prayers Fresh Family prayers, just like personal prayers, can get a little stale. The problem with stale family prayer is that your little ones will get bored. It’s …
Aug 13, 2014: Managing Your Daily Prayer Time Do you ever go entire days without talking to your wife? Of course, not! Yet, we often find ourselves going days without spending quality time in …
Aug 12, 2014: Candlelit Dinners There’s something really special about candlelit dinners. I’m not sure which committee in history voted that candlelight is a requirement for romance, …
Aug 11, 2014: Loving On A Budget Romance doesn’t have to be expensive. Alison and I have a series of financial goals for ourselves. We first want to be debt free, then we want to buy …
Aug 7, 2014: Plan Your Dreams When you dream, dream big. Alison and I have many dreams. One of them is for us to go on our honeymoon. When we got married, we decided that with our …
Aug 6, 2014: Waking Up Together As I write this, it’s 5:18am on a Wednesday morning. I’ve been up for 38 minutes. So far, I’ve weighed in, made coffee, spent time in meditation, and …
Aug 5, 2014: Examine Your Conscience Nightly The other weekend at Mass, the priest gave a fabulous homily. It was one of those homilies that you want to stand up and applaud. It was one of those …
Aug 4, 2014: You’re Worth More Than A Paycheck At some point in our lives, we each ask ourselves the question, “What is my worth?" Towards the end of my last job, I realized that my identity …
Jul 31, 2014: Marriage Rules, Secularism Drools Many people, perhaps a good segment of your friends and peers, have a negative view of marriage. Some believe it’s modern slavery, others see it as a …
Jul 30, 2014: Stealing Little Moments Your day is a series of blocks of time. Every 15 or 30 minutes, you have your time parsed out to one meeting or another project. At home you have time …
Jul 29, 2014: Attend to Her Needs A major theme of this blog is personal service. I believe that the most fun you’ll have is in serving your wife selflessly. If you lose yourself in …
Jul 28, 2014: Choose Joy Being joyful about our lives can be a challenge, despite all of the good things we have. It’s all too easy to let the bad overshadow the good. It …
Jul 24, 2014: I Feel Like A Bum “I felt like a bum.” Alison spoke those words to me two weeks ago. She was describing a team building activity that she participated in with her new …
Jul 23, 2014: The Key to No-Work Sundays Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest in our lives. I’ve written recently about my Lenten journey this year to not work on Sundays. If you want to …
Jul 22, 2014: Building Our Own Prisons Temptation is difficult to endure. You’re actually not doing anything wrong by being tempted. It’s only when you indulge that you get into trouble. …
Jul 21, 2014: Scheduling Together The most powerful tool in your marriage is your calendar. Your calendar will always show you what you think is actually important. I keep a variety of …
Jul 17, 2014: Technology Bowl Technology in our lives has really advanced at an amazing rate over the past 20 years. We’ve gone from a world where electronics made some things in …
Jul 16, 2014: Golden Hour Playing with kids all day is fun. As adults, however, we need time for ourselves. We need time to connect to other humans who can form complex …
Jul 15, 2014: Game Night Families today are busy. Parents are working multiple jobs, kids are going to school during the day and then participating in extracurricular …
Jul 14, 2014: Change One Fault Per Month Two weeks ago, I wrote about conversion in our lives. In the post, I talked about how conversion doesn’t happen overnight, but through thousands of …
Jul 10, 2014: Open to Life In our society, especially recently, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about ways to avoid pregnancy. When did kids become the enemy? In the days …
Jul 9, 2014: Sync Status Relationships have seasons. Sometimes they’re going really well and other times, well, they’re not. Over the past few months, as Alison and I have …
Jul 8, 2014: Deferring Your Wants We live in a microwave culture. We want everything, now. A major burden for new doctors is the size of their medical school debt. Unfortunately, most …
Jul 7, 2014: Dedicate Yourself to Wellness We have just one chance to take care of our bodies. Are you maximizing your physical wellbeing? Finding time to exercise can be a challenge. It’s not …
Jul 3, 2014: Cash is King, but Not God Money makes the world go around. Currency allows us to buy things, both needs and wants. Cash is king, but it shouldn’t make your major life decisions …
Jul 2, 2014: Holy Baby Steps When we’re ready to change our lives, we want it to happen fast. We want to lose the weight, today. We want an answer to our dispute, now. We want to …
Jul 1, 2014: My First Eucharistic Procession Sharing our faith boldly with those around us can be challenging. You can’t just be chillin by the coffee pot on Monday morning and lead with, “Hey, …
Jun 30, 2014: Working in Your Strengths Lifelong marriage can at times be a challenging relationship. In fact, your marriage will be the most complex and intricate relationship that you’ll …
Jun 26, 2014: Stop Treating Mass like A Drive-Thru Our lives are busy. We have work, family obligations, and personal goals that we’re trying to balance. With this time overload, we look for ways to be …
Jun 25, 2014: Care for the Sick As a part of your wedding vows, you promised to care for your wife “in sickness and in health." Taking care of your wife when she’s sick is one …
Jun 24, 2014: The Blame Game Perhaps the most crippling and meaningless activity in American workplaces is the blame game. Every single worker can easily recall a recent time when …
Jun 23, 2014: Sunday Hero Here’s the easiest way to be a Sunday Hero: take the first shower. She gets a few more minutes of beauty rest and you get that satisfied feeling …
Jun 19, 2014: Last Thoughts of the Day A few weeks ago, I wrote about your last words of the day. In that article, I talked about how you should dedicate the last words you have each day to …
Jun 18, 2014: Where Are You Going? We weren’t made for life on Earth. We were made to know, love, and serve God in this life and be with Him forever in the next (Baltimore Catechism). …
Jun 17, 2014: A Line in the Sand Our lives are an experiment. We have one chance to live, and as a part of that experience, we have to find our way. Thankfully, we have wise parents …
Jun 16, 2014: What A Nice Compliment As a society that strives for absolute equality, we’ve really missed the boat on something key. In our rush to make sure that we don’t offend anyone …
Jun 12, 2014: Better Than A Purity Ring Some people believe that in Christian Marriage chastity is no longer a struggle. False. I’ve really enjoyed the past four years since graduating from …
Jun 11, 2014: Be Prepared to Give Being married means living selflessly in a selfish culture. I’m constantly evaluating my life. I look for behavior patterns, I look for habits and …
Jun 9, 2014: Love Letters Marriage is all about daily rediscovery. Being that marriage is a relationship that spans several decades, both you and your wife change. With that …
May 29, 2014: Doing the Right Thing It’s never too late to do the right thing. When I started working on Catholic Husband early last year, things were going well in my spiritual life. I …
May 28, 2014: Fatigue is the Worst Fatigue is the worst, especially when you have a family depending on you. One of the many changes that I experienced as a new Dad was the virtual end …
May 27, 2014: How to Handle Decisions One of the biggest jumps to make between the single life and the married life is the transition to shared decision making. I’ve shared many times …
May 26, 2014: Leave it Better “He always leaves the toilet seat up." This common complaint from spouses shines a light on a major relationship issue. We need to not only be …
May 22, 2014: You’re the Servant of All The Pope has many titles. Perhaps most intriguing is “Servant of the Servants of God." This Papal title is especially perplexing because we tend …
May 21, 2014: The Fastest Way to Grow in Patience You can’t control the things your spouse does. But you can control your response. When it comes to certain things, I can be very particular. I like to …
May 20, 2014: Mutual Wellness One of the best things you can do for your wife is to take care of your own health. Once you lose it, it’s extremely difficult to get it back. One of …
May 19, 2014: The Best Way to Unite Your Family As the head of your household, you’ve got a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. You’re tasked with protecting and nurturing your family. You’re …
May 15, 2014: Why People Delay Marriage The average age of newlyweds is climbing in the United States. More and more young couples are delaying marriage for a significant period of time. …
May 14, 2014: 10 Date Night Ideas There’s a growing body of research that’s demonstrating that regular date nights with your spouse can significantly increase the happiness in your …
May 13, 2014: The Scariest Part of Being A Stay-at-Home Dad I’m about to embark on a new adventure and I’m both scared and excited at the same time. At the end of April, I left my job. I’ve started working full …
May 12, 2014: Withhold Nothing We’re called to be selfless in this culture of selfishness. Last Fall, as Alison and I were preparing for the arrival of Benedict, I spent a few days …
May 8, 2014: A Fresh Start, Daily If you’re like me, you’re really good at making mistakes. Oftentimes, you’ll reach expert level in your mistakes. When you get stuck in a rut, what …
May 7, 2014: Your Example at Mass It happens twice a year. Every Christmas and every Easter, without fail, our parishes are full of strangers. They fill our seats, they park in our …
May 6, 2014: Avoiding Awkward Sex Talks Does teaching your child about the mystery and gift of their human sexuality really have to be an awkward conversation? The “Birds and the Bees” is …
May 5, 2014: Sleeping with A Friend A few months ago, I wrote about how I’ve been trying to watch what types of media I consume. The premise is that you become the media that you …
May 1, 2014: Families Can’t Get No Respect Having kids makes life a little bit more challenging. It’s not without joy, but things just take a little longer. Gone are the days when you and your …
Apr 30, 2014: Daily Family Prayer Now that then Lenten season is over, it’s important for us to remember that while the season is gone, the positive steps we’ve taken in our lives …
Apr 29, 2014: 4 Myths About Parenting It’s truly sad how little we value children today. Modern couples are pressured and even praised for holding off on starting a family for any degree …
Apr 28, 2014: How to Be An Awesome Husband Step 1: Do something that will make your wife’s life easier. Step 2: Repeat.
Apr 24, 2014: Trust the Lord Life is definitely not always easy. In the human experience we each have times of extreme joy and of extreme sadness. How we deal with the problems in …
Apr 23, 2014: Last Words Yesterday we talked about giving each day to God at the moment you wake up. But what about at the end of the day? When it comes to my powers of …
Apr 22, 2014: First Words There’s a curious phenomena in driving that involves your eyes. When you look in a direction other than straight ahead, you will start to drift in …
Apr 21, 2014: Subject Matter Authority Last month I achieved a major milestone for both myself personally and for Catholic Husband. I released my first book, The Transition. I was both …
Apr 10, 2014: Why I Don’t Buy Generic Oreos You can often tell how good something is simple by considering whether or not you would buy a cheaper generic version. Grocery stores all across the …
Apr 8, 2014: Rest on the Sabbath Every year, it seems to go the exact same way. Just a few days before Ash Wednesday and I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do for Lent. I know …
Apr 7, 2014: Inside Jokes We all love to be a part of inside jokes. These jokes come about when we have a shared experience with someone else. The joy of an event lives on when …
Apr 3, 2014: Keeping it Clean Secrecy is the enemy of love. Secrecy drives us to lie, obscure facts, and not be true to ourselves. In fact, it’s one of the greatest tools of the …
Apr 2, 2014: Be Persistent Persistence is a virtue that is lost among many today. We see something we want, we try to get it, and when we fail on our first attempt, we walk …
Apr 1, 2014: Be Generous We tend to think of generosity as costing us something. Generosity fills us more deeply than anything else can. It brings a level of fulfillment and …
Mar 31, 2014: Be Adventurous Marriage isn’t the end. It’s the beginning. Marriage isn’t “turning in the keys.” It’s putting the keys into the ignition. Be bold. Be bold in your …
Mar 27, 2014: Witnessing for Marriage Every day, everywhere that we go, we have the opportunity to show those around us what it means to be married. By our words and our deeds we …
Mar 26, 2014: What this Ring Means Your wedding ring is a constant reminder of your wife’s love and fidelity. It’s a circle, without beginning or end. It’s perpetual. Your wedding ring …
Mar 25, 2014: Prayer Corner We all have a way of giving physical spaces certain designations. The gym is the place where we work out. The library is where we read. The Parish is …
Mar 24, 2014: Having Serious Talks Daily married life is often light and playful. There are jokes, stories, and general bonding. There will be also times in your marriage when you’ll …
Mar 20, 2014: Retreats In the Catholic Church, we spend a considerable amount of time educating our youth about the Faith. It’s almost a universal that youth ministry …
Mar 19, 2014: The Transition Today is an amazing day. Today is March 19th, the Feast of St. Joseph. One year ago today, Catholic Husband launched. It’s truly amazing the …
Mar 18, 2014: Why I Love Lent For many years growing up, I hated Lent. I hate the color purple and everything liturgical was so gloomy. There was no festivity, no excitement, no …
Mar 17, 2014: Your Marriage Your marriage was meant for good. Your marriage was meant for permanence. Your marriage was meant for generosity. Your marriage was meant for …
Mar 13, 2014: Finding Time to Pray Together Prayer in common is a tradition in Catholicism that goes back to our beginnings. Catholics, though we weren’t called that yet, would gather in each …
Mar 12, 2014: How She Communicates Communication. We all want lots of high quality communication, but it can be difficult to find. In a marriage, communication is essential. While I’ve …
Mar 11, 2014: Budget Committee Finances are central to our lives. Money is how we buy the things we need, and do the things we love. Having money can be a great thing, but it can …
Mar 10, 2014: Be Responsible The era of immaturity is dead. As men, we get to enjoy the benefits of manhood. We can drink, buy guns, and stay out as late as we want. At the same …
Mar 6, 2014: When God Says “No” There is an experience that is common among all of us. There is something that you really want and so you pray for it. You pray your heart out. Then …
Mar 5, 2014: Live Like You’re Dating Think for a moment about the early days of dating. A new relationship is fresh, vibrant, and exciting. Your heart races as you receive a new text …
Mar 4, 2014: Planning Margin Time Think of the most successful people that you know. Consider what they do, their characteristics and all of the many obligations that they have. …
Mar 3, 2014: Celebrate Achievements Life is a scoreboard. We set goals and then measure our progress against them. While this goal-setting process can be ruthless in the workplace, it’s …
Feb 27, 2014: Supporting Your Wife’s Goals In the past, I’ve written about personal goal setting. What about helping your wife when she’s got a goal set for herself? I know from experience that …
Feb 26, 2014: Why You Don’t Pray with Her You don’t make the time. It isn’t a priority. You’ve never asked. You’ve never done it before. No one taught you. You don’t know where to start. …
Feb 25, 2014: Ponder Your Mistakes Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. It’s a fatal character flaw that is regularly found in men. Certainly women can be guilty of the sin of pride, …
Feb 24, 2014: Reclaiming Wasted Time Time is our most precious commodity. Like our health, once it’s gone, it’s not coming back. Yet, with so many minutes at our command, it can be …
Feb 20, 2014: Why You Always Lose Conflict in your marriage is a certainty. You and your wife are working towards the same goals, but you may each have a different way to get there. …
Feb 19, 2014: The Benefits of Regular Confession Every 3 months or 3,000 miles, you’re supposed to take your car in for routine maintenance. It’s a normal routine to keep your car in tip top shape. …
Feb 18, 2014: The Importance of Growing Intellectually When we’re learning to drive, our instructors teach us how to pass the test, not how to drive well. There are many things that are like that in our …
Feb 17, 2014: Fight with Your Wife We live in a culture that despises conflict, but loves drama. We think that conflict means that someone is right and someone is wrong. That’s wrong. …
Feb 13, 2014: Evening Routines The end of today tees up the beginning of tomorrow. The things that you do in the evening can have a direct effect on how well tomorrow goes. The key …
Feb 12, 2014: Destroying Bad Habits Over the course of our lives, we develop many habits. Some of these habits will take us further than we ever thought possible. Others will chip away …
Feb 11, 2014: Better Each Day My favorite boss had a saying that has stuck with me. “It’s never too late to do the right thing.” As men, we struggle. We have mistakes that we make …
Feb 10, 2014: Trusting God You really can’t go wrong placing your trust in God. Still, it’s one of the hardest things we can do as people. Trusting in God means letting go of …
Feb 6, 2014: Blessings at Mass Sunday Mass is a beautiful thing. It neatly wraps up one week and begins the next, all in one giant prayer. It’s a time for us to be safe, away from …
Feb 5, 2014: Grocery Shopping Our appetite for adventure in life is constantly growing. Once we achieve a new height, we look for the next challenge. It’s natural to seek this …
Feb 4, 2014: Dinner at the Table Managing family life is a challenge. With family members running in all different directions, getting everyone together can require some real effort. …
Feb 3, 2014: Little Surprises Love can be a difficult thing to show. Since it’s an abstract concept, bringing it into the physical world can present a challenge. It’s because of …
Jan 30, 2014: Men vs. Bros I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We live in a world full of boys. Actually, let me rephrase; we live in a world full of bros. We are men …
Jan 29, 2014: When Your Wife Supports Your Dream Dreaming is a wonderful thing. In dreams, you can release the physical limitations of the current world and imagine what it would be like to overcome …
Jan 28, 2014: Overcoming Natural Barriers In our daily lives, there are natural barriers that often interfere with our goals. They are things that easily prevent us from doing the things we …
Jan 27, 2014: Recognize Her Value The other day I was looking at my iPhone. As I looked at the many apps that have earned a spot on my home screen, I realized how much they have …
Jan 23, 2014: Chastity in Marriage The most common misconception of Catholic teaching on sexuality is that once you’re married, you’re allowed to do anything sexual you want. The idea …
Jan 22, 2014: Finding Contentment Contentment. It’s a rare beast in our world. Contentment represents something that we all want, but look for in the wrong places. We think if we could …
Jan 21, 2014: The Richness of Shared Experiences Shared experiences are a powerful force in our world. There are defining events across regions and nations that give people a bond. For example, most …
Jan 20, 2014: Keeping Things Spicy The institution of marriage is mind-blowing. Two people with two completely different personalities, with different family traditions, come together …
Jan 16, 2014: Pushing for A Joint Goal Working in unison with your wife can be a powerful tool. In fact, when you both set your minds to a goal, you can achieve great things together! I’m a …
Jan 15, 2014: Maintaining A Household The days of being a slob are over. You’re no longer a bachelor, you’re married. Well, unless your wife is a slob, too, I guess. I’m a very clean …
Jan 14, 2014: Lightening Her Load All vocations are a calling to serve others. The single person is called the Church and community. The Priest is called to serve the Parish. The …
Jan 13, 2014: Avoiding Neglect We’re men. We’re hard charging. We’re all about getting stuff done. But how do you do that while not ignoring your family? I always have a task list …
Jan 9, 2014: Keeping God’s Hands Full 2014-01-09 Our personal relationship with God can be difficult to manage. While God is always present, it can be easy for us to fall into “out of …
Jan 8, 2014: Dealing with Life’s Major Decisions We’ve all come to a crossroads. Two paths that certainly have their benefits, but we can only choose one. In our single days the choice might have …
Jan 7, 2014: Keeping Yourself in Balance Each stage of our lives has unique benefits. The single life brings freedom, but a lack of companionship. The married life brings companionship, but …
Jan 6, 2014: Acts of Thankless Service As humans, we long to be recognized for our accomplishments. From a very young age, we seek praise for doing good things. Yet, in the married life, …
Jan 2, 2014: Why Hotels are Temples of Temptation Hotels. As a kid, you were probably excited to stay in them. A new place to sleep, an adventure! As an adult, they can be incredibly oppressive. …
Jan 1, 2014: Dealing with Different Spiritualities Being Catholic is spicy. It’s spicy because there isn’t only one way to be Catholic. In fact, there are countless ways to express and live your faith! …
Dec 31, 2013: Laying Down Your Life for Her Marriage was designed to be a reflection of Christ’s love for the Church. Being part of such a union is a big set of shoes to fill. What makes it even …
Dec 30, 2013: Your Vows Aren’t Stagnant Your wedding is a day, marriage is a lifetime. Those words are so true, but we can easily forget the words that are exchanged. It can be easy to leave …
Dec 26, 2013: Managing Family Time We are living in a new era of working families. With many families having both parents working, it’s becoming harder to have time together. I work …
Dec 25, 2013: The Holy Family Reflection Merry Christmas! As we celebrate and reflect on the birth of our Lord, I had a unique thought. I’d like to share it with you on this great feast! …
Dec 12, 2013: Couple Friends The relationship between a husband and wife is both exclusive and complete. By its design, it can meet almost all of the emotional needs of the …
Dec 11, 2013: Saying Sorry Masculine pride will tell you that apologies are weakness. It will tell you that the person who apologizes first, loses. Masculine pride has also …
Dec 10, 2013: Family Prayer Time Prayer is the bond that keeps the family together. If you think about some of the strongest families you know, there is at least one common …
Dec 9, 2013: The Genius of Marriage The place of marriage in society is something that is being fiercely questioned in our world today. What is marriage? What is its purpose? Why do we …
Dec 5, 2013: Why Culture Isn’t Prepared for Us Culture only wants boys. Culture tears down men. Culture celebrates immaturity and selfishness. Culture celebrates boys who neglect their family for …
Dec 4, 2013: Understanding Christ’s Wounds Living in Western Society today, we can easily have a sterilized view of Christ suffering and dying for our sins. For the most part, our experience …
Dec 3, 2013: Children are Truly the Fruit My son is rapidly approaching the one month mark and the experience for me, as a father, has been something truly amazing. As I was preparing for his …
Dec 2, 2013: Faith is A Gift The term “Cradle Catholic” is a phrase that is tossed around quite a bit. It refers to those Catholics who were given the Faith at their birth. This …
Nov 21, 2013: Heroic Virtue Sainthood is our goal. But, sometimes we start to believe it is impossible. In those times, we fall into sin. My recent experience of the birth of my …
Nov 20, 2013: Safe in Her Arms Many of us have some major trust issues. We’ve all been hurt deeply by someone we love. Those experiences can be traumatizing to us at the time. …
Nov 19, 2013: Praying for Her As husbands, we are called to support our wives. That support comes in many different forms. It may be materially, emotionally or mentally. It must …
Nov 18, 2013: How Nature Can Enhance Your Marriage One of the biggest struggles that married couples face is the monotony of the normal. Married life, on a day to day basis, is quite normal and …
Oct 29, 2013: Men of Sacrifice Growing up, my Dad always gave up the best portion to us. I could never figure out why he didn’t take the largest piece of cake, or why he’d let us …
Oct 28, 2013: Invite Her to Your Element A great thing about being married is that your spouse is not you. You have been raised in a particular set of circumstances and with certain …
Oct 24, 2013: Holding Hands During the Our Father When I was going to Mass as a single man, I’d go to the 7:00am Mass on Sunday mornings. It was the best because it was quiet (read …
Oct 23, 2013: Transitioning from Single Life to Married Life It’s not hard to make the argument that the transition from the single life to the married life is pretty extreme. You go from a position of …
Oct 22, 2013: The Most Commonly Missed Opportunity Regret is a terrible thing. It only happens when we look back and realized we had a missed opportunity. As guys, there is one scenario that should …
Oct 21, 2013: Sleep Hygiene Sleep. We all need it and many of us don’t get enough of it. It affects every area of our daily life and yet we don’t spend much time …
Oct 18, 2013: Nature is a Love Letter We’re busy, I get that. We’re men. All day we charge, we fight, we win. We’re always on the move, always striving for our goals. We can move too …
Oct 17, 2013: Leaving A Legacy One of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had was seeing pictures of my parents when they were first married. As a child, you know your parent …
Oct 15, 2013: Shared Goals The power of unity in your marriage can’t be underestimated. When you and your wife move together towards something, there is an incredible force at …
Oct 14, 2013: When Prayer Becomes Alive Your prayer life is a relationship. It is a conversation between Creator and created. Like any relationship, it is going to have its ups and its …
Oct 11, 2013: When Your Love Languages Don’t Translate There may come a point in your marriage when you realize something. You and your wife may communicate differently. You may want to show her an act of …
Oct 10, 2013: Risk Management There is a term in insurance called “risk management.” Risk management essentially acknowledges that with a given activity, they are inherent …
Oct 8, 2013: Work is Holy “I work so that I can live.” That is the mantra for my generation. We’ve moved to a point where we loathe work. It drains eight precious hours of our …
Oct 7, 2013: To Avoid Whatever Leads Me to Sin There are many things that society has decided are weak in men. Forgiveness, losing a fight, being beaten by a girl. The problem is, they’re wrong. In …
Oct 4, 2013: Support We humans yearn to be connected. We connect in person, on the phone, via text, or on the internet. We are made to be in community. The reason we long …
Oct 3, 2013: Plateaus Over the past year or so, I’ve been on a mission to lose weight. To date, I’m down about 26 lbs with 10 more to go. One of the difficult things about …
Oct 1, 2013: 4 Reasons Your Pet is Not A Kid If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I have a cat. I adopted her three years ago and they have been an adventure! Bringing her home was a lot …
Sep 26, 2013: Community of Prayer One evening I was traveling home from work. It was a nice summer evening, the sun had set and the city streets were alive. As I was approaching home, …
Sep 24, 2013: Bonding Bonding. We all have our favorite “bonding” activities to do with our spouse. Maybe it is curling up with a good book, staying in and watching a …
Sep 23, 2013: Carry On There’s only one thing you can do when you fail: carry on. There are going to be tough days. There are going to be times when you’re upset. You won’t …
Sep 20, 2013: The Art of Negotiation One of the most critical skills you can develop in your marriage is the art of negotiation. Marriage is all about compromise. Since you and your wife …
Sep 19, 2013: Marriage without Love The first few months of your marriage are wonderful. You learn that your new wife has some habits that annoy you, but all-in-all, it’s a sweet life. …
Sep 17, 2013: There Will be Problems There is one thing that you can count on in marriage: there will be problems. If both of you are the same, then one of you is unnecessary. Many people …
Sep 16, 2013: Let’s Fail at Sin We spend too much time trying to fix our spouse. When we have marriage problems, we’re the first to blame the other person. It’s normal. …
Sep 13, 2013: Time is Your Most Precious Commodity Of all of the resources that you have at your command, time is the most precious. Time, once spent, can’t be unspent. Invested wisely, it can pay you …
Sep 12, 2013: Do You Do you love your wife? Do you love your wife more than your favorite hobby? Do you love your wife more than your worst vice? Do you love your wife …
Sep 10, 2013: Managing Routines One of the most difficult things that I’ve encountered in the married life is how to balance routines. I’m talking about the time (usually in the …
Sep 9, 2013: Go Ahead and Fail GK Chesterton once said, “Anything worth doing is worth failing at.” He wasn’t suggesting that we strive to do things poorly. He was saying that if a …
Sep 7, 2013: Keeping Romance Alive Having just celebrated our one year anniversary, I admit that I’m not an expert on the topic of romance. After a year, things are still pretty fresh. …
Sep 6, 2013: You Are What You Eat The old saying goes, “You are what you eat.” It’s true. But I’m not just talking about food. The movies and TV shows you watch, the songs you listen …
Sep 5, 2013: Contentment Of all the virtues in the human race, today, contentment seems the furtherest off. We are consumers and that is what we do. We consume things. We …
Sep 3, 2013: A Rhythm of Prayer We have a lot on our plates. We balance work, family life, and leisure activities. It sounds simple enough, but it’s really not. One of the …
Sep 2, 2013: The Joy of Weddings Now that I have been married for almost a year, I have had the pleasure of experiencing several weddings of family and friends. There is such a …
Aug 30, 2013: You’re Not A Punk You’re not a punk. Believe me, we’ve both met a lot of punks out there. A punk is a guy who cares more about himself than his wife. He’s the one women …
Aug 29, 2013: Make Evenings Count My job frequently results in me working evenings. It isn’t particularly fun, it is just a fact of life. Of course, I make up for my hours by starting …
Aug 27, 2013: Live the Life You Want to Model We are a culture of complainers. We complain about work. We complain about family. We complain about our parents. We complain about our Bishops and …
Aug 26, 2013: Children Are A Reward Each year, the Church celebrates Natural Family Planning (NFP) Awareness Week. We should all take time to learn more about this ethical method of …
Aug 23, 2013: Reflecting Christ’s Love to the World When you get married, you take on two responsibilities. First, you take responsibility for the care of your wife and any children you may be given. …
Aug 22, 2013: Marriage is Not Committed Friendship Marriage is a lot of things. It is painful, it is difficult, it is challenging. It is joyful, it is fulfilling, it is complete. Marriage is enduring, …
Aug 20, 2013: Confessing to Christ I have made no secret that I believe that the Sacrament of Confession is critical to your success as a husband. We fail. A lot. Thankfully, we don’t …
Aug 16, 2013: Participating in Each Other’s Work Work is a key piece of our lives. Through work we do two things: we provide for our family and we use our God given talents to glorify Him and bring …
Aug 15, 2013: Results May Vary Don’t wait to get married to have sex, do it now! If you get pregnant, it’s not a baby until it is born. In fact, you’ve made a …
Aug 13, 2013: Single Life to Community Life When my wife and I got married, I had been living in the apartment that we would live in for about four months. Since we lived close, she had spent …
Aug 12, 2013: Compartmentalization Kills If you are living a fragmented life, you’re cheating yourself. In the 8th grade, I watched the American Classic “To Kill A Mockingbird.” In the film, …
Aug 9, 2013: Uncrossing Your Signals It has been my experience in former relationships that when communication breaks down, the end is near. As social beings, we value quality …
Aug 8, 2013: Dad Smart One of the most interesting experiences for me in being a new dad is how I am starting to recall particular memories. When you and your wife are …
Aug 6, 2013: Communication is Critical Communication is key. But what if you don’t have the keys to your communication? By now, you realize that both you and your spouse communicate in …
Aug 5, 2013: Working Professionals One of the major challenges for any newly married couple is how to balance two very full schedules. When you first are married, you will probably …
Aug 2, 2013: 7 Things I Wish I Had Known About Pregnancy Becoming a parent for the first time is an amazing experience. I should warn you, though. You have been lied to. Now don’t blame me, I didn’t do it. …
Aug 1, 2013: Love Contracts I recently came across an article about a new trend in marriages. It is called a “love contract.” This is different than a pre-nuptial agreement. This …
Jul 30, 2013: You Marry the Family My grandfather once told my mother that, when you marry someone, you marry their family. In our society, we are very rooted in our families. We spend …
Jul 29, 2013: In Sickness On your Wedding Day, you promise to take care of your wife, in sickness and in health. That’s kinda cute. We think that means buying her soup and …
Jul 25, 2013: Husband as Protector As a husband (and father, too!) we have a very important role to fill. It is one that we simply can’t abdicate. It is the role of the protector. The …
Jul 23, 2013: Speak Well of Her How you speak about your wife when she is not around says a lot about the kind of man that you are. Early in my marriage, people in my life, …
Jul 22, 2013: She’ll Drive You Nuts It is getting pretty hard to find a guarantee anymore. But I’m all about adding value, so I’ll give you one right here. Your wife? Your one true love? …
Jul 19, 2013: Nothing Sexier Than an AIDS Test Let’s get real. There is nothing sexier than getting an AIDS test with your fiancee. (Not even a long walk on the beach at sunset!) And that’s the …
Jul 18, 2013: It’s A Race to the Top! “Marriage is an adventure, like going to war." - GK Chesterton When my wife first showed me that quote, I hated it. Those words were spoken (or …
Jul 16, 2013: Coming Home Coming home can be the best part of your day! Your work is over, and you get to now focus on the things you want to focus on: your wife and your …
Jul 15, 2013: When You’re In A Drought, Turn on the Sprinkler There will be dry days. Not just outside, but inside. There will be days, perhaps even weeks or months where you feel that you’ve lost your flare. …
Jul 12, 2013: Avoid the Dangers of the Internet The internet is awesome. With the internet, you are able to connect with people in ways never before possible. Growing up, my dad was in the military. …
Jul 11, 2013: Happiness: Width vs. Depth So, you’re considering getting married? You are all excited about your potential future with this woman. You are reveling in the feeling when one of …
Jul 9, 2013: Going to Mass Together Going to Mass as a family is important. As a married couple, together you form a domestic Church. The center of your family’s life is the Eucharist. …
Jul 8, 2013: Marriage: The Ultimate Team Sport Being married is like being on a game show. You have chosen a partner with whom you will compete against any number of external challenges and …
Jul 5, 2013: You Must Decrease Men usually don’t like to be humble. We can see humility as a weakness. That is foolish of us. The times when you get into trouble, when there is …
Jul 4, 2013: Family Merging When you get married, you become something totally new. Two worlds, two families, two long lines of rich tradition must now form a unique hybrid. It …
Jul 2, 2013: You Define Your Success Success is the currency that we all chase. No matter what we do, we seek success. The tricky thing with success is that there isn’t a clear …
Jul 1, 2013: Use Your Work to Evangelize The other day I was in a one-on-one meeting with a local business owner. I met him through my wife. We had a great meeting, one of the most diverse of …
Jun 28, 2013: She’s Perfect Your wife is perfect for you. She is exactly what you need. From the beginning of time and space, you were both meant to be together, to form a …
Jun 27, 2013: Spring Cleaning Some people don’t like spring cleaning. The thought of spending your entire weekend working is not very appealing. What if you saw it in a different …
Jun 24, 2013: Toilet Paper The other night, as I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that we were almost out of toilet paper in our bathroom. Typically there are four rolls in …
Jun 21, 2013: If She’s Not With You, Don’t Do It Having a good wife is a great blessing. Not all men have good wives. Some women only care about themselves. Sadly, many men have this same problem. A …
Jun 20, 2013: Choosing Your Pain In your marriage, there will be pain. This is inevitable. There are three types of pain. Some of the pain you will have no control over. Other pain …
Jun 18, 2013: Bringing Roadtrips Home I love taking road trips with my wife. The reason? It provides hours of quality communication. It is just the two of us. The really cool thing about …
Jun 13, 2013: Exercise Together Now that the long winter is over, and summer is upon us, I’ve been spending a lot of time outside. One of the best things about summer is that …
Jun 11, 2013: Pray Together The old saying goes, “The family that prays together, stays together.” Sadly, today many families don’t pray together at all. As …
Jun 10, 2013: Loyalty vs. Fidelity In this past Christmas Season, I had been reading some of the writings of Archbishop Chaput. In one of his works, he discussed meeting a young woman …
Jun 7, 2013: What’s the Least I Can Do? American Catholicism is having a rough go. The funny part about it is, none of it has anything to do with Church teaching. The Church, thankfully, is …
Jun 6, 2013: You’re Not that Important I don’t really mean that. You’re important to someone. Hopefully a lot of someones. You’re just not that important to your company. We build ourselves …
Jun 4, 2013: The Church Sustains Us The election of Pope Francis earlier this year was exciting. I was sad to see Pope Benedict retire, but there was a magnetism about Catholicism. All …
Jun 3, 2013: Here’s An Idea When you get home early this week, before your wife, get ready for her. Pick up your mess, draw her a bath, throw a towel in the dryer. When she comes …
May 31, 2013: Keep Holy the Sabbath We all hate Mondays. I get it. But, do we really have to? For many years, I ignored God’s commandment to “Keep Holy the Sabbath.” …
May 30, 2013: If You’re Keeping Score, You Lose If you’re keeping score, you lose. We are naturally competitive. It is natural for us to try to be better than everyone else, at everything. As men, …
May 28, 2013: Teaching Healthy Marriage Growing up, I received most of my education from Catholic schools, thanks to the sacrifice of my parents. Each year, we would celebrate Vocations Week …
May 27, 2013: When to Go to Confession Going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) is hard. It’s not that it’s inconvenient, it’s that it is uncomfortable. The Sacrament isn’t …
May 24, 2013: If You Wait If you wait until you think you’re ready to get married, you’ll never get married.
May 23, 2013: Ring Control Device I drive a lot for work. Last year, I put 35,000 miles on my car. As a Christmas gift, my parents gave me a subscription to Sirius XM. One of the …
May 21, 2013: Why is it so Hard to Pray Together? Why is it so hard to pray with your wife? Intellectually, we’re there. We understand the benefit. We understand that it is a good thing to do. Yet, …
May 20, 2013: I Slept with A Woman Last Night This morning, I woke up and there was a woman in bed with me. It was my wife. It is a story that plays out every morning, all around the world. Sadly …
May 9, 2013: It’s Time to be Men There is a growing chorus among young ladies today. They are recognizing a trend in our society. We have a society full of boys. Women don’t want to …
May 7, 2013: If You Both Give 50%, You’ll Fail Just over a month after my wedding, my wife and I attended my brother’s wedding. It was a beautiful occasion. He got married in the same Church as my …
May 6, 2013: Temptation Lent is a great season. I used to hate it. It was dark and boring. A few years ago, I finally unlocked the key to the season. It came from a deeper …
May 3, 2013: It’s Not Just About You Anymore A few months before I got married, I joined a gym. Everyone asked the question, “Are you trying to look good in your wedding pictures?” It is a scene …
May 2, 2013: Financial Dreams Money is something that people don’t like to talk about. The only thing we like to do with money is pretend that we have lots of it. It’s a shame …
Apr 30, 2013: I Had A Win My desk, at the end of the day, is always completely clear. I am a generally clean person. I try to be diligent in maintaining cleanliness in my life. …
Apr 29, 2013: The Club We emerged from the Christmas Season a few months ago. This Christmas was my wife and I’s first Christmas together. However, now that I am married, it …
Apr 26, 2013: I Owe it to Myself We cut ourselves a lot of slack. Many times, too much. We work hard and then use that as an excuse to be lazy. We come home, and expect our spouse to …
Apr 25, 2013: Stop Sabotaging Your Marriage The summer before my wife and I got married, I received a transfer for work to the city where she was going to be studying. It was great, after two …
Apr 23, 2013: Division of Labor In my 9th Grade World History Class, one of the key areas of investigation for any particular culture was the division of labor. Whom in the family …
Apr 22, 2013: The Apartment Phase Our lives have phases. There are good phases and there are not so good phases. There is one particular phase that almost every married couple goes …
Apr 19, 2013: Mr. Fix-It As men, we like to fix things. See a problem, fix a problem. We enjoy the challenge. We believe that we are good at it. The problem is, we apply this …
Apr 18, 2013: Love Languages When I was studying at Franciscan University in Ohio, one of the big relational topics that people discussed were the “love languages.” …
Apr 16, 2013: Phone Home Daily We live busy, hectic lives. When you first get married, you both might be young professionals. Both of you are working hard on your careers. It is a …
Apr 15, 2013: Cherish the Good Times Marriage is hard. Like anything in life, it has its own seasons. Some days are more amazing than the days when you first started dating. Some days are …
Apr 12, 2013: Traveling Mass I travel a fair amount for work. Perhaps you are like me. One of my favorite unofficial games is “Find the Catholic Church.” If you want to get an …
Apr 11, 2013: A New Identity In our life, we experience many transformations. We change from a child into an adolescent. We change from an adolescent into an adult. We are no …
Apr 9, 2013: How to Not Accidentally Cheat We live in a modern era. The way that we work is very much different than in days gone by. People are now working more and more from home. Business …
Apr 8, 2013: Cohabitation: Not A Test Drive When my wife and I got engaged, we were living in two different cities. She was studying in Detroit and I was working in Pittsburgh. We got engaged at …
Apr 5, 2013: Lessons from Downton Abbey My wife and I don’t have cable. We are currently on the Dave Ramsey plan and, well, we don’t really need it. Instead, like many households today, we …
Apr 4, 2013: Not for the Comfortable Catholics tend to each have their own flare for practicing their faith. Thankfully, my wife and I found a parish near our home that fits with ours. We …
Apr 2, 2013: Try Serving Growing up, every day, my parents used to require that each of the kids read a book for 30 minutes per day. We called this, “Reading Time.” I hated …
Apr 1, 2013: Rejoice The day of my wedding will live forever in my memory. It was a magnificent day. I can so vividly replay all of the scenes, all of the emotions, all of …
Mar 29, 2013: The Ultimate Sacrifice Today is Good Friday. My thought for today is very simple. Christ died because of what I have done. His passion was because I chose to not love Him …
Mar 28, 2013: Trust Your Wife What’s the secret to a successful marriage? Trust your wife. Trust your wife when the storms brew and trouble is on the horizon. When the money …
Mar 26, 2013: Organic Child Planning is Sexy Contraception is a lie. The pitch is simple. You’re a young, hip, independent woman. You have the right to have sex with anyone that you want, …
Mar 25, 2013: Can She Really Always Be Right I am not a prideful man. Whenever I must observe myself or a behavior, if the answer is that I am in the right, I instantly question that judgement. I …
Mar 22, 2013: The Secret to Getting Up After You Fall We all have a very deadly disease. It is a disease whose effects are felt throughout society. The symptoms are everywhere. We are infected with deadly …
Mar 21, 2013: Two Areas of Your Life You Cannot Afford to Neglect Time is our most precious commodity. For so many things in life, we can change the circumstances and regain what we have lost. Yet, with time, once it …
Mar 19, 2013: Welcome to the Beginning Welcome, friend! Well, there I am on my wedding day. A spry young man. As a friend would say, “Just a pup.” Ready to set off on the journey of a …