Chet Collins's Blog: Catholic Husband, page 12

Moment of Conversion

Life is a series of checkpoints, moments along the path that lead us to our final destination. In our Christian life, many of these checkpoints are moments of conversion. The culmination of perseverance and hard work, winter breaks, and you experience that fresh, new spring.

These moments are profound times of spiritual insight. We get a taste of the reality we were designed to exist in. Our understanding of our faith, and the wisdom of loving God’s law, is crystal clear. Temptation bounces off u...

Breaking Faith

It’s challenging to remember the feelings we experienced at the election of Pope Francis. A total wild card, a true Vatican outsider, swept onto the world stage and took the Chair of St. Peter by storm. It was, in some ways, a bit refreshing. Pope Benedict XVI was deeply intellectual, providing the theological underpinnings that we need to sustain the faith. Still, we longed for the charismatic and energetic days of Pope John Paul II.

In those early days, Francis lamented the parochial clericalis...

Love the Path

In life, we often have to walk difficult paths to achieve our desired outcomes. Whether at home, at work, spiritually or in our relationships, getting from where we are to the place that we dream about requires an ongoing commitment and thousands of steps. Though it’s easy to be motivated in the beginning, how can we best sustain our good works?

Though the individual steps in our journey may not be desirable or even enjoyable in and of themselves, if we love the path, success is assured. Armed w...

Foretaste

Although easily forgotten in the midst of this week’s kickoff of the end-of-year holidays, the intent of Halloween, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day is to remind us of our mortality. Nearing the end of the liturgical year, the Sunday readings focus on eschatology, or the end times. Throughout the Bible, and in the ministry of Jesus, the fact that our time on Earth is transitional is never hidden. We are all walking on pilgrimage, with judgement assured when our journey meets its logical end.

T...

A Job Well Done

There are plenty of ways to measure our work. Volume, quality, quantity, we’re never short on metrics. I think the best way to evaluate how you’re doing on the job is by the sense of accomplishment you carry away.

External factors always dominate, but your personal pride is a wonderful barometer. Do you feel like you’ve done a job well done? Have you contributed your best work, your best ideas, and your best efforts to your team’s common goal?

Work is an important component of human dignity. It’s ...

Fresh Start

With the house unpacked, and the children returned, today is our family’s fresh start. We are the same people, with the same jobs and school schedule, in a completely new environment.

It’ll take us time to adjust, to figure it all out, but this fresh start feels like a real opportunity. A new house, a new town, a new parish, it’s a chance to look at everything. I wrote last week that I had to touch every single thing that we owned when I unpacked. Now, I have to touch every single routine.

What d...

Every Single Thing

We moved last week. Although I had the benefit of a whole crew to box up our home and relocate it, once the boxes were in the correct room, the crew left, and it was up to me.

The last several days have been chaotic, waking up early, going to bed late, and little to know schedule. I’ve had to physically touch every single item that we own, and decide on a new place to store it.

We grow numb to the magnitude of our property, to the amount of stuff that resides inside our four walls. We have every...

Natural Conclusions

There’s something about waypoints in our lives that lead us to become pensive. We reflect, look back, and plan for a brighter tomorrow. These endings come at regular intervals and for all sorts of reasons. They’re yet another reminder, in our busy frenetic world, to slow down and think.

I’ve reached one such moment. Everything in my life is about to change, as we set off on a new adventure. As I look back and the years that we’ve been in our current town, I start to see the good in things again. ...

Bend, Don't Break

There’s only so much work that I can do in a week. Every Monday, I enter into the new week with a set number of hours that I want to work. If I work evenly throughout the week, my template leaves me enough time for all the other things that I need to do, with the weekend free to boot.
The problem is that life is never that clean. Although a tightly regimented schedule feels right when written down on paper, it immediately gets mugged by reality when put into practice.

The truth is, no schedule ca...

Scriptural Confession

I went to confession last weekend for the first time in many months. I try to go every other week, but things have been crazy busy. The priest was a visitor, whom I’d never met before. In our conversation, he quoted an obscure Bible verse, Malachi 3:8.

Thanks to my completion of the Bible in a Year last year, I immediately had context. After finishing my penance, I pulled out my Bible, and read the whole chapter.

What’s always incredible about the Bible is how timeless it is. It’s a story, a histo...