The average Catholic in the pew hearing the term ‘Eucharistic missionary’ might think this is a special role in the Church, performed by well-trained holy people in some far-flung region. And yet, every Catholic is called to be a Eucharistic missionary. The faithful’s everyday call to a Eucharistic encounter that ultimately leads to the life…

Michael R. Heinlein What a disappointment it’s been, though unsurprising, to see Catholics offering negative commentary of this summer’s National Eucharistic Congress in the US. Now, I’m not an idealist. Some of the criticism can be warranted. Missteps have been made at the local and national levels. I firmly believe that deeper Eucharistic faith, more…

Whether you’re 8 years old or in your 80s, at some point in your life you’ve probably struggled with the question, “Why do we have to go to Mass?” You just may not feel like going at times. You may not like the music or the homilies in your parish. You may think Mass is…

Want to hear a secret? You likely know a prayer that can reorient you to everything in your life. And it goes like this: “Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Or as you might have learned it growing up:…

The Eucharist is the summit of our faith, in which the entire story of our salvation is made real in a miraculous and powerful way. The Roman Missal calls Holy Eucharist the “Sacred Banquet, in which Christ is received; the memory of his Passion is renewed; the mind is filled with grace; and a pledge of…

During my high school years, I lived with my grandmother Matilde. Sunday night was a sacred time when she would always take me to church. Back then, I lived in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, and we had two options to go to Mass: Our Lady of the Rosary Church, three blocks away, or…

Sidewalk chalk, that staple of summer, is easy to spot on an early morning walk. You may be tempted to start skipping over the loosely drawn squares of some little person’s hopscotch course. Or, since this chalk often comes in pastel hues, it’s hard to create a convincing Elmo, but an artist has given it…

The Sufi mystic Rumi once lamented: “I have lived too long where I can be reached!” That was twelve hundred years ago, long before cell phones, the internet, computers, and social media. Today, most of us live where we can be reached all the time. While this has some huge upsides, it also has a…

I don’t run into shepherds very often, but a few years ago, I ran into a shepherd (via Google) by the name of Kim Goodling. She and her husband live in Vermont and run a large farm with a lot of livestock, including a flock of sheep. On her blog, Kim Goodling wrote about what…

Even though the Bible was written ages ago, its pages always have meanings and messages for us today. Our challenge is to find connections between the text of yesterday and the ‘today’ of our lives. There are five parts to lectio divina – holy reading – which is an ancient way of praying with Scripture.…