The Soulful Catholic Blog

“Why should I worship an inanimate object?”
Was it an honest question or was Catholic-bashing masquerading as flippancy? I’ll never know because the question was posed as a reply to a social media post about devotion to the Sacred Heart.
During June, Catholics around the globe honor the Sacred Heart, culminating in the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus which this year falls on June 27 (it’s a moveable feast that falls on the Friday after the Corpus Christi octave each year.)
The feast day and month-long celebration has nothing to do with worshipping an inanimate object. Is has everything to do with lauding the boundless love of God for humanity in spite of everything we have done to betray, mock and ignore Him. We should be giving thanks and repenting, not trading barbs with online trolls.

I looked up from the pages of the book I was engrossed in at the sound: My husband of nearly 40 years was sitting at the kitchen table drumming his fingers steadily.

“I know that sound,” I told him with a smirk. “That’s the sound you make when there’s something that needs doing, something you’d rather not have to do, BUT you’re going to get up and do it anyway. Because that’s just how you roll.” He laughed, knowing I had read his mind. At this point in our journey, I know his “tells” and he knows mine.

On that particular day, it turned out to be a problematic toilet in the kids’ bathroom — not exactly most people’s favorite DIY task. Later that day, as I smiled at the memory of our playful bantering, it got me thinking.

The phrase jumped out at me and set off alarm bells:
“The growing burden on this sandwich generation weakens careers and quality of life…”
The Soulful Catholic’s quiet perusal of the Sunday-morning edition of the Wall Street Journal is generally not fraught with consternation. And yet this seemingly innocuous turn of phrase had her taking screenshots for further reflection.
The article in question was examining the challenges faced by the sandwich generation, referring to those adults charged with the care of both young children and elderly parents or grandparents.
As someone who navigated that season of life not so long ago, I sympathize with the struggle. But a burden? A drag on my career? A lower quality of life?
Uh, no. Definitely no.

“Next week, don’t be the same person you were last week. Let’s start to live a more radical response to the gift of the best news ever … I beg you to respond by sharing the Gospel with confidence, by rejoicing in his love even when life is really hard.”— Chris Stefanick, National Eucharistic Congress, July 21

Of all the powerful statements that were uttered at the National Eucharistic Congress, this is the one that stays with me.

Many of us seem to have lost the sense that the Gospel is, in fact, good news. When faith becomes caught up in debate and politics and keeping score, the heart of the Gospel is lost. When we become cynics who are quick to complain, criticize and condemn, we forget to share the joy we should have from being a disciple of the Lord Jesus. We forget what Jesus told us: “I did not come to condemn the world but to save the world (John 12:47).”

“Consequently, an evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral!” Evangelii Gaudium #10

That has to be one of my favorite quotes from The Joy of the Gospel, the 2013 Apostolic Exhortation penned by Pope Francis. And it reminds me of Marlin, a radiology tech I’ve come to know over the last 20 years.
I’m not making this up.

The Christmas lights have barely been packed away but the countdown to Lent has begun (Ash Wednesday is an unusually early Feb. 14 this year.) Which can only mean one thing: You’ll need to come up with your Lenten plan stat AND March Madness is right around the corner.

Now, why would The Soulful Catholic give a lick about the National Collegiate Athletic Association annual basketball tournament? And what, pray tell, does this have to do with Lent anyway?

You might not be surprised to learn that church attendance is down here and around the U.S.
Outside of Christmas and Easter, it’s not very often that you have a standing-room only crowd at church on Sunday. There’s a startling graph published by Pew Research that shows a steep decline in church attendance starting in 2007 when 54 percent of Americans said they attended religious services monthly or more.
By 2019, that number dropped to 45 percent. Pew also reported that during most of the Covid 19 pandemic, about 6 in 10 Americans did not take part in religious services in any way, including roughly 7 in 10 adults under age 30. Seventy percent of our young people are not going to church!

As they wheeled me into the ICU, I noticed the crucifix on the wall among all the other life-saving equipment. I was in a Catholic hospital, after all, and its catholicity was something that struck me again and again during my four-night stay.

What can only be described as one of the most terrible and yet somehow wonderful experiences of my life unfolded just a few weeks ago when I was sitting in the chapel at the Diocesan Pastoral Center in downtown Phoenix. Staff at the DPC are blessed to be able to attend Mass in the chapel most workdays.

Shortly after the Gospel was proclaimed and we settled into our pews, I felt as though someone punched me in the forehead.

For every parent of an adult child who has rejected the faith, the story of a local man named Bill ought to infuse hope and a renewed determination to pray and fast for their children.
“I was away from the Church for 32 years,” Bill told The Soulful Catholic one hot afternoon during a discussion about faith and the Bible. Bill had signed up to participate in Christ in Our Neighborhood, a small-group program focused on the Sunday Mass readings.
While away from the Catholic Church, Bill belonged to a denomination that proclaimed Catholics are not actually Christians and will not be saved.
There was a long and rocky road back to the Church established by Christ, but eventually, Bill was home.

“We offer you no salary, no recompense, no holiday or pension. But much hard work, a poor dwelling, few consolations, many disappointments, frequent sickness, a violent or lonely death and unknown grave.”
Well. If Bishop Auguste Martin was trying to sell priests on serving as missionaries in Louisiana in 1873, those hardly seem motivational words. And yet, they came: five French priests eager to serve the Lord in spite of gargantuan difficulty and guaranteed danger. The U.S. Bishops’ Conference voted to advance the beatification cause of the five young men at their plenary assembly last week.
And it makes me wonder: What keeps us from having the kind of zeal and love?

The bumper sticker on the car ahead of me caught my attention: “My religion is kindness,” it proclaimed to weary commuters stalled at a red light.
I looked closer and saw it the quote was attributed to the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader to Tibetan Buddhists.
Well, I’m for kindness; aren’t you?
It’s the underlying message that kindness is the apex of religion that makes me balk. At a time in our nation’s history when fewer and fewer people identify as followers of Christ, this kind of declaration shouldn’t surprise us though.

As a growing number of Americans claim to have no religious affiliation, it becomes ever more crucial for those who know the Lord Jesus to witness to what His death on the cross accomplished and what His Resurrection means: life, freedom, hope and peace.
As of 2021, about three in 10 Americans, according to Pew Research, claimed to have no religion. Indeed, self-identified Christians in the U.S. are down to 63 percent, a drop from 75 percent just 12 years ago.
The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is the difference between knowing about our Lord Jesus and actually knowing Him personally.

If you’ve ever stood ankle deep in the ocean, you’ve experienced that unmistakable tug of the tide. You plant your feet firmly in the wet sand, refusing to allow it to drag you out to sea.
Or, if you’re the more adventurous among us, you wade out through the waves, perhaps even venturing past them to tread water among the swells, watching surfers as they await the perfect wave.
And that’s where the powerful tide can draw you in, refusing to let go as you drift further and further into the ocean until it swallows you. A strong swimmer might be able to fight his way back, but you’ve got to be very strong indeed to resist the relentless tide and haul yourself toward shore.

Thousands of football fans streamed into downtown Phoenix last week to enjoy the NFL Super Bowl Experience at the Phoenix Convention Center, right across the street from St. Mary’s Basilica and the Diocese of Phoenix headquarters.
They had no idea the mercy of God would greet them at the corner of Third Street and Monroe.
That’s because a six-foot-high wooden confessional was standing right there on the sidewalk. Nearby, volunteers stood at a table heaped with crucifixes, Miraculous Medals, pamphlets, rosaries and holy cards.

You may have noticed that our churches are not as full as they once were. The reasons for this drop in attendance and in the practice of the faith are myriad but rather than become discouraged, we can choose to see the opportunity in the challenge:

How do we fulfill the urgent mission of evangelization that’s been entrusted to us?

How do we share Christ with those who don’t know Him?

And that’s where it gets exciting. We’ve got the best news in the whole world — God loves us and sent His Son Jesus to redeem us and free us! We don’t have to live in fear or despair or darkness.