Fast for Rachel Continues …

Along with superior medical care, an integral part of Rachel’s battle through critical illness continues to be a wide variety of prayer from so many, so generously … thank you and keep them coming! Last week many participated in the first Day of Fasting for Rachel. The timing was important, as on that day Rachel […]

Fast for Rachel!

Rachel Lozano, our daughter in law and integral member of the extended family, has been critically ill since early January (brief overview of the first month or so here, though much has changed since). Along with superior medical care, an integral part of her battle continues to be a wide variety of prayer from so […]

a Savior

For our own family this year we, like so many others, have struggled with profound loss, loss unsought, the loss of someone very dear to us. Pain, loss, and suffering comes in many sizes and shapes, forms seen and unseen by others, yet so very real, so very solid … even intimidating. Yet as the […]

Knowledge Better Than Confusion

The need for sound knowledge of the faith, and how Blessed Newman is a good guide When we are faced with with disappointments and setbacks, questions with no answers, pain that seems to have no meaning, with the truly inexplicable … what then? The search for answers to the unanswerable, for meaning in our lives, […]

The Expanding Universe

In the Catholic worldview there is simply no room for conflict between faith and science, between belief and reason. In fact, the very proposition that “faith is in conflict with science” makes about as much sense as saying that “gardening is in conflict with lunch”. Different, yet complementary domains with a common goal – no […]

Thinking Clearly: Humility and Scientific Inquiry

Scientific progress can be heady stuff – exciting, invigorating, even intoxicating, in a certain fashion. Imagine realizing some fundamental insights into the beginning of cosmos, as did Fr. Georges Lemaître with the Big Bang theory? Or perhaps peering inside the invisible world within a cell, as envisioned within this fascinating and beautiful animation?

Easter and the Supernatural

Easter … for most any Christian Easter is a central event of the faith. Indeed as a Catholic goes deeper, we often begin to appreciate that most sublime yet shortest of the seasons, the Triduum – the three days – Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday. Full of meaning, replete with echoes of Heaven, showing the way for our lives, all centering around the death and … Resurrection … of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, our Lord.

Yet for those who are skeptics, who have either never shared any Christian faith, or who have drifted – or even ran – away, Easter is little more than overstuffed bellies, candy drenched bunnies and magical thinking … for these friends and family, could the whole mythos of Easter ever be anything more?

Ave Maria IPT – Open House Weekend!

For those of us in St. Louis this weekend brings a great opportunity – the chance to explore, for free, the possibility of diving seriously farther into the faith by obtaining serious, meaty, thought provoking graduate level theology … in person, from excellent theologians, straight from the heart of the Church.

The True, the Good, and the Beautiful … Part 1

I really appreciate almost everything I’ve learned via engineering – first through a couple of degrees, then by plying the trade for quite some time. Disciplined thinking, careful questioning of (most – but more on that in a moment) presuppositions, and perhaps the confidence to know when to quickly gather what you know, then project […]

Big News This Week … bye bye Papa

Almost finished with my pre-dawn, ritual scan of the WSJ this past Monday I ran across a headline, that if it had appeared in any other site I would have summarily dismissed – Pope Benedict XVI to Resign What?!? Not much of a story, just the headline and what was obviously a one or two […]