NCRegister: Taking Care of My Little Sin

Living in sin, with sin, by sin, for sin, every hour, every day, year in, and year out...Always the same, like an idiot child carefully nursed, guarded from the world. ‘Poor Julia,’ they say, ‘she can’t go out. She’s got to take care of her little sin. A pity it ever lived. (Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, Book II, Chapter 3)

I was recently asked by a secular publication about my thoughts on Pope Francis extending the faculty to absolve the sin of abortion indefinitely to all priests (who have the faculties to hear confessions). What struck me as I read his Apostolic Letter from the end of the Year of Mercy was how the women he presented from Scripture were all living sinful lives, but also how Christ extended mercy to all of these women. The women caught in adultery has always been a penetrating example for me of his great mercy and my inability to judge others, for how can I claim to be without sin and cast the first stone? Yet, he who is without sin will not cast one at the sorrowful women.

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register...

BIS Devotion: Discerning God's Will Everyday

I am over at Blessed is She writing today's devotion:

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I spent the entire semester I was abroad in Europe during college trying to surrender my will to God’s will about a particular man in my life. He very clearly liked, almost loved, me, but he was conflicted about his vocation. I tried desperately to not interfere in his discernment, but also to accept God’s will, come what may. The hardest thing for me was figuring out for what exactly I should be praying for this dear man. I wanted him to choose God’s will for his life, but I also felt that my own destiny was already tied up in this man’s destiny. In my very depths I felt that we were meant to be with each other, but I had to wait for God’s will to be made clear to him. The only prayer I could pray with any peace was this: for this man to discern God’s will for him. That letting go and letting God was one of the hardest things I have done in my life...

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NCRegister: How Father Michael Scanlon Changed my Life

When I first started at Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2004, Father Michael Scanlan was already a walking legend on campus. He had retired from his role as president just four years previously and spent his days as the chancellor of the college visiting with students, saying Mass, and hearing confessions. When I heard the news this weekend of Father Scanlan’s death, I was reminded of how the course of my life would have been completely different had it not been for Father Scanlan turning around the failing College of Steubenville and transforming it into the vibrant, community centered, academically focused institution it is today. His life and work, open to the movement of the Holy Spirit, obedient to the requests of his superiors, has been formative in so many lives of Catholics, especially those of us who have been able to attend Franciscan University.

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

In the traditional Roman Catholic calendar (the one they used before the implementation of the new Mass after Vatican II), the Christmas season goes until Candlemas, February 2, which is the Purification of Our Lady. (In Jewish law a newly delivered mother had to wait 40 days after birth in order to be purified. Our Lady, being Immaculately conceived, did not need to be purified, but she followed the law nonetheless.)

That being said, I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas season and a Happy New Year!

Photo taken by Mathew Lu.

This is the family photo we sent out with our Christmas cards. My New Years resolution is to not end up in the ER this year/not fall down the stairs again/not get a concussion/or anything else...