The Teaching of Balaam and the Interior Life of a Father
A father is rarely destroyed by open rebellion. He is worn down by small permissions. Scripture names this pattern plainly.
It is called the teaching of Balaam.
Hearing the Word of God: Why the Church Is Enough
I want to share something personal—not as a rebuke, but as formation. Over time, I’ve learned that how we hear the Word of God matters just as much as that we hear it. And the Church, in her wisdom, does not leave us to figure this out on our own.
Like many Catholics, I’ve spent seasons searching for clarity, reassurance, and certainty. I’ve listened to gifted speakers, powerful testimonies, emotional experiences, and compelling explanations of faith from outside the Catholic Church. Some of it sounded beautiful. Some of it felt convincing.
But what I slowly realized is this: I was looking outside the Church for confirmation of what Christ had already given me inside her. That realization changed everything.
Standing in the Storm, Not Saving the World
There is a moment in fatherhood that feels almost frightening—not because something bad has happened, but because you suddenly see clearly.
You realize how many people walk around calling something “normal” when it’s really just adaptation.
How many storms live behind calm faces.
How much trauma gets buried, managed, rationalized, or renamed instead of healed.
And you realize: this includes us.
Discernment, Authority, and Avoiding Scandal in Catholic Groups
Catholic faith is meant to be lived in community. Parish study groups, prayer gatherings, and formation nights are real graces when they are ordered properly. Yet the Church also warns that spiritual confusion often arises not from bad intent, but from enthusiasm detached from discernment.
So how does a Catholic participate faithfully in group settings—without causing scandal, confusion, or drift from the Church—while still remembering that people are people, not enemies?
The answer lies in understanding authority, humility, and the limits of personal experience.
Growing in Sonship With the Father How God Forms a Man From His Way to His Will
There comes a point in a man’s conversion where he realizes something shifting inside him.
Not just “I’m trying to be better,” but God is fathering me.
Not just “I believe in God,” but I’m being led.
This is the heart of Catholic theology on divine sonship: the Father doesn’t simply forgive sinners—He raises sons.
Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God
January 1 — World Day of Peace
“And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” — Luke 2:19
The Church begins the civil year not with fireworks or resolutions, but with a woman holding a Child.
That alone tells us everything.
We don’t start the year with power, ambition, or achievement.
We start with reception.
With silence.
With trust.
Mary does not speak in today’s Gospel. She does not act. She does not explain. She keeps and ponders. The Word has already been spoken into her life, and now she lives with it — day after day, without knowing how it will unfold.
That is the posture of faith.
The Four Faces of the Gospel: Isaiah, Ezekiel, Aquinas, and the Vision of the Evangelists
Across the pages of Scripture, three men encounter a mystery that cannot be measured: Isaiah, Ezekiel, and St. John all witness the throne of God. Their visions are separated by centuries—Isaiah around 740 BC, Ezekiel in 593 BC, and John near the end of the first century AD—yet what they see is unmistakably the same reality.
One throne.
One worship.
One God.
One heavenly liturgy that does not change.
And woven into these visions stands a profound truth: the fourfold Gospel—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—is not merely a collection of writings but a participation in the eternal worship of heaven. The Church Fathers saw the Evangelists reflected in the mysterious “four living creatures” of Ezekiel and Revelation, and St. Thomas Aquinas gave the definitive theological synthesis: each Evangelist bears one of the four faces, revealing Christ from a different angle, yet all in perfect harmony.