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Our Lady of the Sign: A Novel
Our Lady of the Sign by Abigail Favale | Ignatius, 2026 | 224 pages | $17.95 “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can talk you out of it?” The gas station attendant’s question comes at Simone’s last stop on her journey back to the remote farmhouse she hasn’t seen …
Sacred Heart Church, Dayton
Sacred Heart Church in Dayton is home of the Dayton Vietnamese Catholic community and is served by the Congregation of the Mother of the Redeemer (CRM, called the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix until 2017), a religious order formed in Vietnam in the 1940s. About half of the order’s members …
Humbly Believing Leads to Peace
My dad passed away almost 13 years ago. The raw impact has dulled with time, but the reality that someone so essential is gone remains a painfully unflinching reality. My oldest son vaguely remembers him, but to my four other children, Pop Pop is a character in beloved stories from …
The Ancient Providers and Protectors of God’s Family
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gn 1:26-27). What does it mean to be made in the image of the God …
The Purity and Martyrdom of St. Maximillian Kolbe
On most Sundays at St. Maximillian Kolbe Parish, my family sits facing a stained glass window of Fr. Kolbe. The window contains a constellation of symbols representing the events of his life; from well-known facts (his Auschwitz uniform) to those lesser known (his time in Nagasaki). At the top of …
The Madonna of Humility
A Guide to Visio Divina Invite the Holy Spirit to enlighten your experience as you gaze at the painting. Notice what thoughts and emotions enter your heart and mind. Be still. Pray with the image as you are led. BACKGROUND From the seat opposite me in the confessional, the priest …
Freedom, Identity, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus
June is the month of the Sacred Heart, when we celebrate the passionate Heart of Jesus bleeding in a deep desire to be united with each of us in those moments of struggle, those moments where we experience a particular passion in our lives. It is in these moments that …
Humility Hurts (And That’s the Point)
You’ll never regret acting in humility. A friend shared this advice years ago, and I’ve never forgotten it. It applies in every circumstance you’ll encounter, particularly to relationships. Your boss gives you feedback you don’t agree with. Act with humility. A friend says something that lands wrong and probably wasn’t …
The Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Air
As most readers of this column are aware, my primary job is Professor of Moral Theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and School of Theology. Some of you might know that I am also an attorney, licensed in Ohio and many federal courts. But for the past five months or …
