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Join Me For A Free Catholic Mom’s Summit!
Guys, I’m very excited to be able to invite you to a FREE event, happening in November, right from your own homes or together as a small group in your own neck of the woods. That’s right, calling all you moms out there to join me at the Catholic Moms Summit, where some really amazing Catholic authors and speakers are going to be sharing their wisdom about the real issues moms face every day and the practical steps to find the peace and balance we all want. Can I get an “Amen!”? I’m so excited to be part of this amazing weekend put together by Catholic moms for Catholic moms…
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I’m Exhausted and A New Podcast
Guys, I am physically and emotionally exhausted by the sadness hitting the newsfeeds right now. I really wanted to write a post about the Catholic View on Racism, but it will have to wait until next week. It’s just too much right now. But here’s a quote from one of my hero’s John Paul II that sums up it quite well: “In the last decades…marked by the worrying resurgence of aggressive nationalism, ethnic violence and widespread phenomena of racial discrimination, human dignity has often been seriously threatened. Every upright conscience cannot but decisively condemn any racism, no matter in what heart or place it is found.“ John Paul II, 2001…
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Talking to Your Kids About Sex
A number of years ago, I was asked to testify before Congress on the issue of abstinence education. I guess you could say it was because I had “survived” the sexual experiment that so many kids my age had been subjected to — in our schools and in the media we consumed. I guess you could say I had “survived” all the obvious (and not-so-obvious) messages pushing kids my age into the world of “safe sex” — whatever that was — to the detriment of our hearts, minds, souls and bodies, too. I was one of the 90210, Dawsons Creek, Friends generation of kids that didn’t actually buy what they…
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Does Happily Ever After Really Exist?
Who doesn’t want to be married happily ever after? I know that I did. Nobody goes into marriage wanting it to fail — unless the person was only after money or fame or notoriety — but that wasn’t actually a marriage in the first place. That was just a legal contract with some benefits attached to it. I am talking about the majority of people who get married. Most people enter into a marriage because they love someone and want to spend the rest of their life with that someone — to begin a new life with them. They are in it for the right reasons. So why do 50%…
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Maybe He Shouldn’t Have Kissed Dating Goodbye
This week, I was saddened to see a very public statement by former megachurch pastor, Joshua Harris, announcing his divorce from his wife and a renunciation of Christianity and its teachings. Harris had risen to fame at the time I was graduating from college with his wildly popular book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I am sure I have a copy of that book gathering dust somewhere in one of my boxes from that time, so I am relatively familiar with the impact it had on a generation of young adults. In many ways this man, Joshua Harris, had begun a revolution amongst evangelicals trying to navigate the sex-saturated world around…
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Does the Modesty Culture Cause Shame in Women?
A series of events this week — which included a friend sharing her concern about imposing modestly guidelines in our home — led to a deep dive into a very important question, “Does the modesty culture cause shame in women?”. Honestly, I’ve had a very positive experience with modesty culture, but I know that is not the case for everybody, and I took her concern very seriously. One of the most difficult things about being a parent is that you can never really go on “autopilot” — the moment you start getting overly confident about parenting, is usually the moment you find yourself hitting a wall. I guess what I’m…
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It All Comes Back to a Theology of the Body
Once upon a time, I traveled around the country giving chastity talks. For some reason, as I sat down to write a conclusion to the two previous posts on NFP, one of the more unique chastity talks I ever gave came to mind. Let me set the stage for you. We were invited to give a talk at a Catholic college in Louisiana. It was a mandatory talk for all the fraternities and sororities on campus. That in itself made for an interesting setting. We were pleasantly surprised by the incredibly enthusiastic frat boys, who came running up to fill the front rows of the room. They were just so…
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Beach Struggles, Hugh Hefner, and Teaching Our Kids to Navigate a Sex-Saturated World
This past week, Hugh Hefner, founder of the Playboy enterprise, died. May God have mercy on his soul and on all the souls who have been hurt by his legacy. Though I don’t dare suggest I know Hugh Hefner’s motives, I found it surprising that some people have tried to raise this man up as a sort of hero. Are you kidding me? Please somebody tell me any good that has come from Hugh Hefner and the pornography industry? Porn isn’t about helping people — it’s about enslaving people for selfish gain. Men, women, and children are being bought and sold as commodities to feed the insatiable thirst it creates…
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Florence: What Art, Beauty, and Naked Statues Have to Do with Being Catholic
“This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair”. ~John Paul II, Letter to Artists~ One of the reasons I love being around kids is that they ask the honest questions that adults are too afraid to ask. When traveling to Florence with kids, a question that will almost inevitably come up is, “Why so many naked people?” I’m not talking about the people passing by, but everywhere you look — in churches, piazzas, and museums — there are naked people depicted in very life-like reality. It might surprise you that the Church was one of the greatest patrons of the arts — and without the Church,…
