God may want you to be spontaneous, but he also wants you to be disciplined. How does that work? Well, unless you just want to have no control over you impulses like a dog chasing a squirrel, discipline is a necessary prerequisite to being spontaneous. Spontaneity requires a schedule, Fr. Mike says. God can only introduce new and exciting things into your day once you’ve done the things he put on your path in the first place. So make a schedule for your day. Yes, life will get in the way and you...
Oct 24, 2019•6 min
We may be too hard on ourselves when considering how we use the word “should.” Of course, we should go to Mass and pray every day. We should avoid stealing and other sins. However, in the midst of the healthy “shoulds,” there could be unhealthy “shoulds,” like “I should enjoy going to Mass and praying,” or “it shouldn’t be this hard to avoid sin.” But no one ever said that. No one ever said doing what’s right would be easy. So let’s stop “shoulding” ourselves, and let’s rely on God’s grace to pu...
Oct 17, 2019•6 min
Knowledge is always good, but St. Thomas Aquinas said curiosity—or the fickle pursuit of unnecessary knowledge—can be a vice. What he meant, and what Fr. Mike means here, is that the methods by which we feed our curiosity, and our motivation for feeding it, can lead to vice if we just want to know something instead of pursuing what we need to know. Those things we say we have to know about because everyone else is talking about them—like that popular show we say we simply cannot miss, or that th...
Oct 10, 2019•8 min
If you’re in any kind of situation in your life where you feel you are limited in what you can control, you may not be as chained to your circumstances as you think. Fr. Mike offers encouragement, saying you can still make interior decisions and have an effect on your circumstances to some extent. You still have agency. Even though you may not be able to change everything you want, you can change your heart. Resentment and bitterness can prevent a great deal of needed change, so if they’re in yo...
Oct 03, 2019•7 min
Fr. Mike says the key to making decisions together is distinguishing between preferences and principles. If the reason you’re favoring a choice is a matter of principle, it is your duty to lead the other person in that decision to the truth of that principle. If the choice you’re favoring is just a matter of preference though, charity suggests that you default to the preference of the beloved one involved in the decision instead. Fr. Mike uses going to church as an example. It is a matter of pri...
Sep 26, 2019•8 min
Fr. Mike offers the antidote of common sense for the anxiety that often comes after making a big decision. As a campus minister, he sees many students who feel like they made the wrong decision to come to college because things are not the way they imagined. To people in these situations, he advises them to stay the course. Paraphrasing St. Ignatius of Loyola and C.S. Lewis, he says to never change your course in times of desolation when that same course rang true for you in times of consolation...
Sep 19, 2019•7 min
After reading a book on will power, Fr. Mike discovered an important lesson when it comes to how we handle spiritual setbacks. He noticed how resisting sin is a lot like resisting a donut when on a diet. If we resist for some time but then end up giving in and eating the donut, that doesn’t mean all of our progress in the diet is lost. In the same way, if we resist sin for some time but then give in, the grace God offers us through confession can restore us. In fact, it can restore to even highe...
Sep 12, 2019•9 min
Fr. Mike responds to last week’s episode, “Expressing Your Opinions”, where he said when we speak our mind we need to consider why, what, who, and how. We need to discern why we think we should express our opinion. What’s our motive? We need to consider what it is we are commenting on, and whether we are in a position to do so. We need to keep in mind who we are talking to. Are we in an advisory role in their lives? And finally, how are we addressing the issue? Are we being coy or passive aggres...
Sep 05, 2019•9 min
Fr. Mike says there are four things you should ask yourself before expressing your opinion: why, what, who, and how. First, evaluate why you’re expressing this thought. Is it because it’s the right thing to do, or is it because you are trying to one-up someone? Second, what is your opinion? Is it something true, like a principal, or is it just a preference? Third, who are you talking to and what is your relationship to this person? Lastly, how are you expressing yourself? Even if you are totally...
Aug 29, 2019•9 min
Catholics use Scripture and Tradition because Scripture tells us to use both. St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). If God wanted us to use Scripture alone, wouldn’t he tell us as much in the Bible? True, St. Paul emphasizes the value of Scripture: “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for tra...
Aug 22, 2019•12 min
If we can’t use the Lord’s name in vain, can we joke about God? Fr. Mike makes the case that there is room for humor about God in the context of love. No one in the universe or beyond it deserves more honor, respect, and reverence than God, and we jeopardize our souls if we fail to see this. At the same time, though, Jesus called us his friends (John 15:15). Friends can joke about each other because they know there is mutual love and respect there. It goes even deeper than that though, Fr. Mike ...
Aug 15, 2019•9 min
Fr. Mike points out five things the Church can learn from one of the latest fitness crazes, Crossfit: In Crossfit gyms, you’re seen, you’re known, and you’re missed when you’re not there. How often does someone stop coming to church without us even noticing? Crossfit is functional fitness, exercises that help you live your life. If we can bridge the gap between what we do on Sunday and our lifestyle, we will see how church helps us be more virtuous in our everyday life. Crossfit has scaled worko...
Aug 08, 2019•9 min
Not every protagonist in the Bible makes the morally good choice. The Bible is not a collection of stories that tell us how to live. It’s not a bunch of fables; the stuff in the Bible really happened. If the characters who we are told to look up to always did the right thing, it wouldn’t have much to teach us about real life. In real life, we all make wrong decisions, and the stories in the Bible show us the consequences of those decisions.
Aug 01, 2019•7 min
Fr. Mike answers that God does not make us with flaws, but we are all born with the unfortunate effects of original sin. We were all made in the image and likeness of God, but if we feel like some sinful behavior has been a part of us for as long as we can remember, that part doesn’t come from God. It comes from our fallen nature. Whether or not we were “born that way”, God still wants to make us holy and wipe away even the most deep-seated blemishes. God loves us just as we are, but loves us to...
Jul 25, 2019•10 min
Fr. Mike offers a follow-up to his video on Dr. John Gottman’s “four horsemen of the apocalypse” with this video on Dr. Gottman’s proposed remedy: the Golden Ratio. For every one instance of these four horsemen that signify a relationship is falling apart—which are defensiveness, criticism, stonewalling, and contempt—there should be five instances of the opposite. The four horsemen still rear their heads in the healthy relationships that Dr. Gottman observed, but these relationships have the fol...
Jul 18, 2019•9 min
Fr. Mike goes all the way back to Genesis to explain why Catholics have a pope. God established the kingdom of Israel with the twelve sons of Jacob. Centuries later, he appointed David as the king who would unite this kingdom. Centuries after that kingdom was divided, Jesus established a new kingdom by appointing the twelve apostles. To unite this new kingdom, which is the Church, he appointed Peter as his vicar here on earth. Jesus is the king, but he gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter. This...
Jul 11, 2019•14 min
We hear the phrase “in the world but not of it” quite often. But how do we live that out in our everyday lives? Fr. Mike gives a crash course on how to follow Christ in situations where there may be tension between you and someone you’re close to. Reminding us of Matthew 10:34, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” Fr. Mike explains that Jesus is a cause of division. As followers of Christ, we have to acknowledge and accept the painful reality that following him will cause us to be divi...
Jul 04, 2019•10 min
When it comes to trying to control God and keep him at a distance in our lives, there are at least two ways that we go about it. Either we lay low and stay out of trouble, or we excel at whatever task we’ve currently been assigned to. Both strategies intend to keep God out of our lives so we can keep doing what we’re doing, because we’re comfortable doing it. Well, if you’re in one of those camps, get ready because God can call you to something different any minute now. You may not have even not...
Jun 27, 2019•7 min
Fr. Mike is honest about why it’s so hard for us to make friends. A necessity for friendship is time, something that many of us simply don’t have. More than that, true friendship requires a painful level of vulnerability and transparency. When asking yourself who you are willing to be friends with, you’re really asking “Who are you willing to give access to your wounds?” With that in mind, consider what Jesus said: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master ...
Jun 20, 2019•8 min
Fr. Mike asks if the bad things you think you don’t have the capacity to do are actually just things you don’t have the opportunity to do. A friend of Fr. Mike’s was recovering from an addiction, and this friend noticed how he was deceiving himself. He was telling himself “I would never …” when he should have been saying, “I haven’t yet ...” Many times the sins we avoid we have only avoided because we haven’t had the opportunity to commit them. Acknowledging that we may do something regretful if...
Jun 13, 2019•8 min
How we spend our time is one of the most valuable decisions we make, because time is one thing we can never get back once it’s gone. Maybe God is calling you to do something more with your time, in this very moment even, but distractions are pulling you in too many different directions to focus. Make no mistake, distractions steal our time, even those we willfully choose. Even worse, as St. Alphonsus Ligouri said, voluntary distraction can steal our soul. Maybe there’s a dozen different things y...
Jun 06, 2019•11 min
For many people, the Catholic Church’s teaching on in vitro fertilization and contraception is a hard one, but it is in concordance with the nature of things. The nature of a thing, as Fr. MIke puts it, is its “what-it’s-for-ness”. Sex is for procreation and the unity of the couple. Equally important is the fact that sex, not in vitro fertilization, is the natural way to bring forth a new life. Contraception and in vitro fertilization violate the nature of not only sex, but also the nature of th...
May 30, 2019•13 min
Perhaps you’ve felt the temptation to be a cookie-cutter Catholic, one who does all the Catholic things that other Catholics are doing because they think … well … that’s what makes us Catholic. But comparison is kind of like the cousin of envy, Fr. Mike says. If we only express our faith in certain ways because that’s what other believers around us our doing, we should re-examine our relationship with Christ. After all, he is the only one we should pattern our life after.
May 23, 2019•7 min
What good does feeling sorry for yourself do? Fr. Mike points out a hard truth in saying—while you have the right to grieve when tragic things happen in your life—you never have the right, or permission, to feel sorry for yourself. All it does is shrink the universe down to the size of you. It blocks out the blessings God gave you that you should be thankful for, and paralyzes you from joyfully giving to others. When you feel the temptation to feel sorry for yourself coming on, in the words of S...
May 16, 2019•9 min
Many people say God acted much differently in the Old Testament than he did in the New Testament. They say the God of the New Testament is merciful and compassionate, but in the Old Testament he is often harsh and unforgiving. A thorough look at Scripture reveals that this is not the case. God is in fact merciful and just throughout the Bible. Fr. Mike clears up a great deal of confusion between the Old and New Testaments, and shows how God has stayed quite the same since before the beginning of...
May 09, 2019•8 min
God wants you to be holy, so he is going to set you on a path of purification if you choose to do his will. He is the one who is going to make you holy. This process is going to strip away many things you hold dear. It’s going to require active participation in his will, doing what is right and good. But it’s also going to require passive acceptance of things that are out of your control. See everything you do and experience as a chance to grow in holiness, and God will make you into a saint.
May 02, 2019•13 min
Jesus asked the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda, “Do you want to be well?” It seems like an obvious question, but—as Fr. Mike explains—in order for this man to desire healing, he had to believe he could be healed. So many of us have given up on the thought that God can change us from whatever it is we don’t want to be into whatever it is we want to be, and what we believe he wants us to be. Whether it’s an illness, lack of willpower, or just lack of ability, we believe our problem is chroni...
Apr 25, 2019•8 min
There are many great ways to describe hope, but Fr. Mike defines it as “trust in another extended into the future.” He recalls two stories from the Gospels that exemplify what hope is not. When Peter denied Christ, and when the two travelers on the road to Emmaus abandoned their hope in Christ. Peter had Jesus (they were basically best friends), but—by denying him—was essentially saying he didn’t need Jesus. The travelers needed Jesus, but the way they saw it they no longer had him. Fr. Mike exp...
Apr 18, 2019•8 min
Fr. Mike’s words on taking up our crosses may come as a relief to many of us. He rejects the “harder is holier” approach, and reminds us that taking up our crosses is ultimately about having more freedom. Christ says “My yoke is easy, and my is burden light” (Matthew 11:30). God has a particular task for each of us, and taking up our crosses means denying what we want for our lives so that we can do God’s will. After all, that is what we were made to do and the only way to truly be free. “Then J...
Apr 11, 2019•11 min
Jiminy Cricket said “Always let your conscience be your guide,” but how do I know if I have a good conscience? A good conscience more often is concerned with our responsibilities than with our rights. It is more preoccupied with what God wants than with what I want. Fr. Mike tells us, “Stop thinking like the world and start thinking like God.” The world will have us think our conscience is the final judge on what is right and wrong, but as Catholics we know that God is the final judge, and our c...
Apr 04, 2019•12 min
