Everyday Discipleship

“BeDADitudes” can help you be the father God is calling you to be.

The Fathers helped define, establish and promote the dogmas of the Catholic faith.

Sister Hosea Rupprecht shares, “One of my mom’s sayings was, ‘If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.’ This came to mind as I reflected on the message for this year’s World Communications Day: ‘Share with gentleness the hope that is in your heart.'”

The Church builds on what has gone before but is not afraid to introduce new systems that, only by taking the risk of trying, we realize are better than what came before.

Right now, various circumstances in our own diocese challenge us to be adaptable. For example, changing demographics is a major factor prompting adaptations in our parishes.

One of our older kids was in a weekend tournament, and a priest from one of the Catholic school teams offered to say Mass for anyone who wanted to attend. So we trooped downstairs to a large conference room, where we sat in uncomfortable chairs under drab fluorescent lighting — and one of the loveliest moments of my motherhood unfolded.

“Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” St. Augustine’s famous words addressed to God introduce his account of how a headstrong, self-indulgent young man became one of the most important Christian thinkers of all time and a saint — and the father of the Augustinian order, to which Pope Leo XIV belongs.

The world is planted thick with situations to which the Gospel can only be brought by a lay Catholic.