Jonathan Ryan's Blog, page 7

Things Keeping Us Going: Weekend with the Very Best Baby Edition

  This past weekend, my husband and I trekked to my parents’ house on an island in New Hampshire. My daughter, son-in-law, and grandson came up, too. My parents–G.G. ( for great grandmother) and Big G, collectively known as the Double Gs–had only met the Very Best Baby briefly, a year ago, when he was […]

Dark Devotional: Of High and Lowly Trees

  Working in the church sometimes makes it difficult to remember what the church is for.    It can certainly make God feel far away. Sometimes I envision God trapped on the floor of my office, buried under the pile of curriculum magazines, apostolic exhortations, diocesan memos outlining new COVID-19 protocols, and the stagnant energy […]

Things Keeping Us Going: Big Feelings Edition

  What a week! As I point out to my preschoolers, who are just figuring out how to manage in this world, it is hard work to feel all your big feelings. Let’s just say I worked very hard this week: My daughter eloped. It did not come as a complete surprise, there had been […]

Dark Devotional: Body Drawn and Quartered

When I was a child, we attended Mass at a Dominican convent the next town to the North. The nuns had a different visiting priest almost every week; they came from all over, and brought with them many different traditions, cultures, and approaches to Mass. Two things were always the same: Sister Suzy’s painful organ […]

St. Joseph, Foster Father

This is the next installment of the Sick Pilgrim series of reflections during this Year of St. Joseph. The Need for Foster Care Foster care serves as a temporary, emergency place for children to safely be cared for while the situation with their biological parent(s) is stabilized. There are many reasons why a child would […]

Things Keeping Us Going: It’s Been Raining the Entire Holiday Weekend Edition

Memorial Day Weekend Nor’easter It is Memorial Day here in the United States. This is the day we honor those we lost serving in our armed forces. Traditionally, there are parades, wreath-laying ceremonies, and somber remembrances. It is also, as my local news station put it, the “Unofficial Start to Summer” marked with barbecues and […]

Dark Devotional: After the Fire

Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? (Deut. 4:33).   Last Sunday morning, I reflected that it would be the first time in twenty-five years as a Catholic that I wouldn’t be receiving Communion during the Easter season. The dispensation is still […]

Things Keeping Us Going: End of the Semester Edition

  It feels like we are ALL graduating this year! You may know that my day job is teaching at the lab school of a Highly Respected University in the Northeast, where I teach preschoolers, and supervise undergraduates who work or observe in my classroom throughout the year. My side gig is as an adjunct […]

Dark Devotional: Your Daughters Shall Prophesy

“Granted, this is not a world that keeps us. Granted, there are some sadnesses in which I do not long for God.”   – Mary Szybist   I’d run out of Mass again. The third Sunday in a row. As the liturgy of the word gradually unfolded into the liturgy of the Eucharist, the bile rose […]

Things Keeping Us Going: Blowing Deadlines Edition

Ever have that feeling that you can’t shake that you forgot something? Ever wake up in the middle of the night realizing that for the second week in a row you completely forgot to write your weekly Things Keeping Us Going post? I have no excuses to make. I have reminder notices, a publishing calendar, […]