NCRegister: "Inloveness," Virtue, and NFP

The professor and I co-wrote this one:

We began to fall in love in the early spring during college.

The chemistry was quite obvious. During the summer before we got engaged, we read A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, in which he tells the story of the deep “inloveness” between himself and his wife, Davy.

We, too, like Davy and Sheldon, wanted to preserve and deepen our inloveness. In our marriage, our use of natural family planning, with all of its struggles and suffering, plus the joy of our children, has been a key instrument in deepening our inloveness; it has aided our growth in virtue...

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NCRegister Blog: 15 Suggestions for Literature That Will Feed Your Soul

A couple of months ago I explained why fellow mothers in my situation in life (lots of little kids, lots of mundane tasks) should make an effort to exercise their brains through reading books on a regular basis. And while I was targeting moms in that post, all Christians need to take seriously the call to form our minds and seek truth. Yet, most of us do not realize the immense value we can draw from reading good literature in the form of novels and short stories.

I have always been a lover of novel reading, but as my reading has been largely self-directed I have always had trouble choosing good books to read. I came across a list of novels compiled by John Senior, a great professor of the humanities, which he called “the Good Books List” in the appendix of his book The Death of Christian Culture, and it is from this list that I have drawn most of my reading choices of late. Through reading these good books I have been slowly discovering how a novel forms one’s moral sense by allowing a reader to enter into various scenarios and seeing how characters are affected by those choices. This is helpful because we can learn so much about sin and the human condition through our imaginations to help us form our consciences without muddying our souls.

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NCRegister Blog: Pray For Your Priests, for They Exercise Christ’s Sacred Power

It is that time of year again—when the new priests have been ordained and the reassignments from the bishops are out and implemented. When I first heard that the beloved pastor at my mother’s parish was being transferred I wondered how she would take the news. I knew that she would experience sorrow, but I also knew that she would be one of the first to reach out to the new pastor of her parish with prayers and any support she could offer. She would still attend the daily Mass, receive the Sacraments from her pastor in persona Christi, be available to pray during adoration hours, and have him over for dinner. She would adjust to him as her new pastor, and I am sure that she already has, because my mother deeply appreciates all priests.

The parochial vicar at our parish was also transferred to another parish after only one year with us. We had already grown to appreciate the depth of his homilies, which called us on to live our Christian lives more intensely. We had become friends with him through several meals, and now we will no longer receive Jesus from his hands weekly. In some ways it is an occasion of sorrow, but in other ways it is a realization that experiencing Christ in the sacraments is so much more than which priest is ministering to us. It is the same Christ giving us grace, whether it be through the words and hands of Fr. Jaspers or Fr. Schroeder.

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Novena to Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin begins today!

Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin have had a huge impact on my life as a mother, wife, and as a sinner seeking to know, love, and serve God through their own lives of holiness and through their daughter, St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

In the past two July's I have hosted links to this Novena on my blog each day of it. This year I am not going to host each day here, but I am sharing a link to the whole novena.

Click Here for the Novena to Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin.

I would love for all of you to join me in praying to these holy saints for my marriage, your marriages, those of our loved ones, for single people hoping for marriage, for couples discerning marriage, and for the conversion of our society to know the true meaning of marriage.