Joy, said Chesterton, is the small publicity of the pagan, but the gigantic secret of the Christian. This somewhat mysterious remark was brought into sharp clarity for me by, of all things, the memory of a Twilight Zone episode I saw long ago. A two-bit thieving murderer gets gunned down in a back alley after a heist and wakes up in some snazzy place resembling Las Vegas, full of glitter, girls and gold. He is informed by his impeccably dressed host that he has come into his eternal reward, so he proceeds to make it with the ladies, gamble to his heart's content, and generally live the high life. However, he begins to notice something: he's bored. The chicks all swoon for him, the dice all...READ MORE

Once upon a time, I was talking with a friend, a fellow convert who (as is common with us) was wondering why on earth Catholics who don't believe much of what the Church teaches stay. He was greatly puzzled about the tendency of many life-long Catholics to remain quite proudly Catholic despite the fact that much of what the Church insists we must believe is something they flatly reject in favor or whatever the latest Oprahism is on the tube. Equally puzzling, both during this pontificate and the last one, is the common tendency of many Catholics--usually cradle Catholics--to say all sorts of rubbish about the teaching of the Pope (he's "reactionary" doncha know), yet to go on treating him...READ MORE

As you read this the Sheas are chilling in a tent on the shores of the mighty Pacific Ocean here in our beloved Washington State.

I love every part of this annual sojourn.  I love the packing.  I love the excitement of the kids.  I love the drive to the campground.  I love the salt wind, the water, the seabirds, the rocks and weathered driftwood.  I love the sound of laughter around the fire.  I love the quiet pokey country roads out in the southwest of the state.  I love all the hurly burly of checking in, unpacking our stuff, setting up camp, blowing up air mattresses, and getting all the gear where it needs to be.

And best of all, I love that, after that, there is not going to be much...READ MORE

The center of our Faith is Eucharist. Eucharist means “thanksgiving”. That means that the center of our Faith is thanksgiving. It is in the form of a thanksgiving meal that our Lord chose to make Himself present to us. And He did so, shockingly, “on the night He was betrayed”. In other words, he defiantly gives thanks and praise to His Father in precisely the place where we humans immediately turn to make the most obvious case for atheism—the place where the enraged atheist cries out and says, “If there is a loving God, why do the innocent suffer horrors and die in torments with nobody to help them?” Jesus was that innocent one. A few hours after His defiant act of thanks, He would sweat...READ MORE

When I was a kid I believed my family knew everything. My brother Mike, after all, could work wonder by turning me invisible with a mere “Abracadabra!” I’d run around the house waving at everybody and making faces and they would all stare right through me saying, “I hear you, Mark, but I can’t see you! Where are you?”

More than that, my parents knew everything there was to know about anything from ancient history like World War II to all the names of airplanes to dinosaurs. My oldest brother, Rick, was a fountain of information on subject that came to hand. They were gods—until the day I asked “Who invented shoes?” and was flummoxed to discover none of them knew.

And as time wore on, I...READ MORE