One of my core childhood memories is of singing at Mass. It’s neither a sappy nor a prayerful story, however. This was one of my rare moments of rebellion...
Practicing Catholic
Practicing Catholic essays explore Catholic spiritual practices, from lectio divina to washing dishes, through personal reflections on prayer and ritual.
Sometimes when I visit my parents’ graves, I remember going as a boy to the same cemetery with my mom and grandmother, carrying the plastic flowers as they...
Wash dishes Even if it is only breakfast dishes you do by hand, consider it an opportunity. You need not pray a psalm—in any ordinary sense—in order to make...
There is a rhythm to pipe smoking, a ritual even, one that allows you, if you let it, to enter into a state of contemplation. You must pack the pipe first, and...
At my former parish I was the catechist for second graders, students for whom the chief focus and driving dynamic of the school year was, of course...
At the start of the Triduum last year, a theater monk offered our group of lectors this advice: Do your homework. Tell the story. The monks of Saint...
“In the beginning was the Word,” wrote St John. “He is the image [ikon in Greek] of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation,” wrote St. Paul. We meet...
I attended evening prayer for the first time at a monastery in upstate New York. I was immediately drawn to it because the service correlates perfectly with...
I took my son to church for Holy Thursday for the first time last year when he was just more than 18 months old. I worried that we’d have to leave early or...
Ash Wednesday has become a very popular feast day, perhaps more important to some people than Holy Days of Obligation. At Marquette University, where I teach...
