Catholic Parenting – Page 7 – Perpetual Adoration

May 12, 2018

A Surprise Question When I Donated Blood

Last month, I scheduled a time to donate blood at the Red Cross. In order to save time, prior to showing up for my appointment, I logged onto the Red Cross website and answered all the preliminary questions that I’m required to answer before I can donate blood. The questions were designed to allow the Red Cross to determine any blood safety risks that may be present.

May 5, 2018

Healthy Paranoia vs Healthy Fear

Last week, I wrote about the importance of practicing healthy paranoia. The definition of “paranoia” is “a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others.” My definition of “healthy paranoia” is “the intentional practice on the part of a person to be reasonably and rationally suspicious and distrustful of people who the person is not intimately familiar with, so the person can guard against unanticipated surprises and dangers.”

April 21, 2018

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A Personal Bodyguard For Your Family

I’m writing this article while I’m in the presence of our Lord in the adoration chapel at the Church of the Risen Christ in Denver, Colorado. Georgette and I arrived in Denver yesterday (April 18) to visit our newest grandchild. Her name is Magdalene, and she was born three weeks ago. Magdalene is our 15th grandchild and the first child of our daughter, Laura, and her husband, Tyler.

April 14, 2018

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A Local Lawyer is Sent to Prison

A local lawyer who I know — I’ll call him Rick — was recently sentenced by a federal court judge to 60 days in prison for taking money that belonged to one of his elderly clients. The Lawyer is in his mid-sixties. I want to share with you a letter that I sent to him after the judge handed down the sentence. I think you will agree that the advice that I shared with him would be of benefit to anyone. The sending of the letter was what I considered to be a spiritual work of mercy. Here’s what I wrote in the letter:

March 17, 2018

What Can I Do? I’m Only One Person…

I’ve written before about how I graduated from Saint Louis University Law School in May 1982, moved back to Peoria with my wife and child during the summer of 1982, and opened my law practice in January 1983. A month after I started my law practice, my wife and I had our second child.

January 27, 2018

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Why is That Church in a Music Video?

I’ve written before about how I was involved in music during my high school and college years. When I was a senior in high school, I formed a barbershop quartet with three of my friends. I did the same thing in college. While my high school quartet had a limited number of performances, my college quartet performed at several community functions and events.

December 9, 2017

Managing Your Anger

One of the ten principal virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary was “continual mental prayer.” During her life, the Blessed Mother was constantly in tune with God’s will. Every morning she woke up thinking about God, she thought about Him continually throughout the day, and she went to bed thinking about Him. She was “the new Eve,” who possessed the same preternatural gifts that Adam and Eve possessed before they sinned.

November 18, 2017

Thank God I’m a Catholic Boy

In March 1975, during my senior year in high school, country music singer John Denver released a new single record with the song, Thank God I’m a Country Boy. That year, only six songs made it to the top of both the Billboard Hot Country Singles Charts and the Billboard Hot 100.

October 21, 2017

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Wildfire Halted by the Prayers of an Old Lady

On October 14, 2017, a headline on a news website caught my attention: “As everything around him burned, one Napa man’s house somehow survived.” The headline — and the article that followed — was published on the SFGATE.com website, a sister-site of the San Francisco Chronicle. Here’s how the article began: