Chet Collins's Blog: Catholic Husband, page 4

Jesus is King

Who is this Jesus, the one to whom the crowd flocks, then condemns? Who is this Jesus, who claims to be the Son of God, who challenges every convention and system? Who is this Jesus, whose breath brings healing, whose words alter the trajectory of lives, whose spit opens the eyes of the blind? Who is this Jesus, who posses a power so perfect that even brushing the tassel of His cloak is enough to end hemorrhaging? Who is this Jesus, whose flesh is essential to our survival, whose blood washes aw...

Witness

I’ve always had great respect for evangelical Christians and LDS. When we lived in the Deep South, it wouldn’t be unusual for a car to pull into our neighborhood, and its occupants split off into pairs knocking on doors. I worked with the LDS extensively in my prior job, and their two-year mission is something else. These are people who are truly convicted, and willing to knock on your door and tell you all about it.

Our Catholic understanding is that the Spirit gives each of us our own unique g...

Theology of Marriage

Until recently, marriage was a unifying thread of the human experience, seen across cultures, people, and time. In every civilization, there was a social structure which formed the basis of the family and, by extension, society. The State established and sanctioned these unions out of its self-interest in a stable populace, a natural network of support for children, and the key to its perpetuation. It’s only in recent times, under the tyranny of convenience and a culture obsessed with disposabil...

Extreme Comfort

There’s little doubt that we are living the most comfortable lives any human has ever experienced. Electricity, clean water, and boundless food with few threats, we have got it good. It’s easy to slip into complacency, taking this life for granted. So when a spring storm rolls through and knocks out your power for two days, the degree to which we depend on these comforts to function becomes clear.

The same is true for our spiritual life. We have access not only to the full Bible, in our language...

Watching the Pitch

My alarm is set for 5:00am. I have a plan, an excellent plan, one on which I’ve executed regularly for the last 12 years. My alarm goes off, I get up, push the alarm back, and go back to bed. The pitch came over the plate, I could’ve knocked it out of the park, and instead I watched it go right by.

What is it about the good things in our life that make us want to resist them? We know what God sacrificed to be in a relationship for us, but we are still attracted to sin. We know that exercise leav...

Shout

There’s a famous quote of St. Augustine in which he objectively observes God’s pursuit of him during his dissolute years. In this dispassionate experience, Augustine envisions God calling after him, and even shouting. This description shows how God would stop at nothing to possess Augustine’s heart, even if it meant resorting to yelling.

We live in a world filled with noise. Even as I write, ambient music plays in the background to keep my brain engaged in the work at hand. But how does God deli...

Seek

My young daughter was thumbing through her children’s Catechism last week, when she excitedly shared her discovery: it has all the answers! We live in a golden era of information, where everything we wish to know is easily within reach. More than that, we’re in a period of the New Evangelization where our message is being shared in high-value productions.

Use the Hallow app and you’ll see the acclaim is well-placed. It’s as premium of an experience as Headspace or Calm, only it aims to call us h...

Slush

February is rapidly coming to a close, and the first signs of spring are starting to appear across the landscape. Warmer air moves in and the snow that’s been our constant companion since mid-November is disappearing. Left beneath this slushy mix is a solid sheet of ice.

Shoveling fresh snow, especially powder, is easy. It was my first season using a snow blower, and in just a few minutes I had a walkable path. Even cleaning up the walkway was easy. Today, after a full day of sun and above-freez...

Shuffling

Our new house has a full basement, about a third of which is unfinished storage space. In the past, Alison and I’s household storage has been limited to closets and the occasional over-garage attic space. This is a whole other league.

As we moved in, it was easy to relegate things to the storage room. Carry the box downstairs and, in the openness, just set it down. Stuff expanded to fill the space it was given. Days into unpacking, the storage room was littered with items, strewn about without r...

Tomorrow Never Comes

I spent a lot of time thinking about the future. My brain is wired for efficiency, so no matter the task or topic, it’s constantly trying to optimize. It saves me some degree of time, to be sure, but I’m guilty of putting together plans for my plans.

Having a plan, for a project or just life, is a great thing. It allows you to make many decisions at the outset, and align your choices towards that end. Decision-making is streamlined because any option that doesn’t result in getting closer to the ...