Like many other children, my daughter enjoys going to the zoo. There’s a zoo within an hour’s drive so it’s not a big deal to take her and I enjoy seeing her so happy at the zoo. However, the cost adds up after a while ($20 admission for both of us).

I recently had the opportunity to review a preview copy of The Catholic Briefcase by Randy Hain. I would highly recommend this book to Catholic dads or any Catholic who has to balance the demands of work with their faith.

The balancing act between we often walk is not easy, and we often take on the task alone with little support.

The damage pornography does to a relationship and to an individual are well documented. I want to consider here just one of the effects of pornography on a couple and consider a possible problem not identified in most discussions of marriage.

One of the problems of porn is that it presents one partner (usually the man) with an unrealistic view of what to expect in and of a sexual partner. That is, it presents an airbrushed reality with a model who is begging to do things any sane woman would find beneath her dignity. As Simcha Fisher puts it,

If you can summon up a panting beauty just by touching your iPod screen, then why go to the trouble of getting to know an actual woman—learning who she really is, winning her love, and dedicating your life to serving her?

I am in reflective mood at present; that is in part a fruit of the Chartres pilgrimage, and in part the result of a recent wedding anniversary (27) and birthday (50). At such moments, one pauses to take stock. So I have been reflecting on one of my fundamental responsibilities as a Catholic Dad: the [...]

How can we enter through the narrow gate when the pack on our back is too large to fit through it and too heavy to carry?

Stairway to Heaven is a weekly feature exploring how to live our Catholic faith in our culture.

There are many great reasons to attend weekday Mass, especially if you do so at the same parish. One of them is that you get some incredible day-to-day insight from the pastor.

This morning’s homily was so thought-provoking that I threw out my intended post to write this one.

Today’s gospel is from Matthew 7. The last part of it is Matthew 7:13-14.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”

St. Joseph and Work as an Expression of Love

Barely a day goes by in which I don’t hear someone complain about work or express an ardent desire to vacation or to retire.

Would people be so quick to dismiss work and its value if they knew what work – and work done well – is worth?

There’s a lot of noise about the higher education bubble – like it’s not worth going to college anymore. Though the price of education is expensive, the price of ignorance is even more. So, there are quantitative and qualitative differences. There’s the pay and considerations for advancement but there are other things i.e. perspective, attitude [...]

As fathers, we must put work in its proper place. If not, it becomes our god and we become its slave.
When my two children came along, I was in a job that required me to travel and work long hours.  I was having too much fun to really think too much about the time I was spending away from my family. 

Plus, I had always been a workaholic.  I overachieved.  I didn’t take vacations.  I got advanced degrees.  My work was my identity.  I found my self-esteem in my professional successes and recognition.  I marveled self-indulgently at the “important” work I was doing.

Then one day, my wife muttered something under her breath about being a single mother.  [...]

As with the Holy Family, material wealth is not a prerequisite for family. Choosing what is right for the family often involves forgoing these luxuries.

As you would expect, the Holy Family receives a lot of attention during the Christmas season.

On the Feast of the Holy Family, Pope Benedict XVI prayed the Angelus with the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square and then he expounded on how the Holy Family is a model for all of us.

The Holy Father noted that a profound mystery surrounds the birth of Christ and that “the birth of any child brings with it something of this mystery.” [...]

Discussion of workplace rights often neglects the corresponding duties, but these duties are essential to right understanding of justice relative to both neighbor and God.

There is always a great deal of talk in the workplace about employee rights – what the employee is owed by the boss; whether it be more pay or time off or a more leisurely work environment.

But, how much talk is done in the workplace about the reverse question – what do employees owe to their work and to those who depend on their work?

I thought about this question when I heard the news last week out of New York City that sanitation workers orchestrated a deliberate slowdown during one of the worst blizzards in decades. They didn’t do their jobs and people suffered.[...]