An interruption is anything that takes our attention away from our primary task. We may think our days are filled with interruptions: people cutting us off in traffic, a slow internet connection, etc. But in order to truly be interrupted, we have to have a primary task. We live in a world that is constantly trying to distract us, so much so that if we really start to think about what our primary task for today is, we may not be able to come up with one. What if we lived every day with the primar...
Jul 15, 2021•9 min
We can be 100% confident that when we confess our sins, we receive complete and total forgiveness from God. However, God loves us so much, that he’s allowed the choices we make in life to matter. That means that even when we’ve experienced forgiveness for our actions from God, we may still face the natural consequences for those actions here on earth. Today, Fr. Mike explains why we still experience some consequences for sins that have been forgiven in confession.
Jul 08, 2021•9 min
St. Paul tells us, “Do everything without grumbling,” but even the best-intentioned Christians can fall into a toxic habit of constant complaining. It’s true that sometimes, sharing a complaint can help rectify an unjust situation or call attention to something that needs to change. But when you start fixating on the negative things around you and voicing your critiques or grievances about everything in your life, you imprison yourself in your own personal hell. Today, Fr. Mike encourages us to ...
Jul 01, 2021•10 min
“It is good to guard the secret of a king, but gloriously to reveal the works of God, and with fitting honor to acknowledge him.” – Tobit 12:7 How often do you acknowledge the works of God? How often do you recognize what he’s doing in your life? In this passage from Tobit, the Archangel Raphael is encouraging us to pay attention to the works of God—not only in our lives, but in the lives of those around us. He is constantly present, even in our most mundane tasks. But how often do we notice his...
Jun 24, 2021•9 min
How should a Christian react to “cancel culture”? Chances are that if you’ve been on social media or listened to the news in the past year, you’ve heard of “cancel culture.” Cancel culture is that practice of boycotting a person or group of people because of controversial actions or opinions. While it might have a fancy new name, this is nothing new to history. Every time period has had some individuals or practices that society deems as controversial or questionable. But are we supposed to prac...
Jun 17, 2021•11 min
Learn more about the Pocket Guide to the Sacrament of Reconciliation with Fr. Mike Schmitz and Fr. Josh Johnson. Confession is a place of never-ending mercy and forgiveness and is one of the most beautiful parts of our Catholic faith. But for many, it can also be a very daunting experience, especially if it’s been a long time since your last confession. Whether it’s the first time you’ve gone in a year, or it’s the first time you’ve gone in your life, God is ready and willing to forgive your sin...
Jun 10, 2021•9 min
Why do we keep critics in our lives? You probably have someone in your life that seems to be on the hunt for anything they can criticize. It might not be a friend, a coworker, or a family member. It might just be yourself. Today, Fr. Mike explains how to turn your inner critic into your inner coach.
Jun 03, 2021•9 min
What is truth? On this channel, we speak a lot about the teachings of the Church and how our society longs for these truths. But have you ever stopped and asked yourself what truth really is? There can be a lot of long, philosophical, complicated answers to this question, but today we have a simple one: truth can simply be defined as “what is.” In other words, a statement is either true or false depending on how closely it describes reality, or what is. But if truth is centered around reality, a...
May 27, 2021•10 min
What does it mean to say that Jesus is the Lord of your life? We hear this phrase a lot in the Church, that Jesus is the Lord of our lives, that he has dominion over them. But what does this look like practically? If we just look at the definition, it means surrendering everything we have to God, and giving it to him without hesitation. But how can we truly surrender everything to him without fearing we won’t get it back? Today, Fr. Mike talks about how we can surrender to God daily.
May 20, 2021•8 min
Should we really talk to God about everything? There are a lot of different kinds of prayers (liturgical, litanies, the rosary, the chaplet of divine mercy, etc.), but today Father hones in on mental prayer. Mental prayer—including lectio divina and Ignatius prayer—is about having a conversation with God and inviting him into your mind and your heart. But our minds are messy places, and our hearts are wounded. Should we really be talking to God about all of our thoughts, longings, and desires?
May 13, 2021•9 min
The Ten Commandments tell us to “honor thy mother and father”, but what does that really look like? Especially for adult children? Parents are not perfect, and sometimes they make mistakes that leave us and others wounded. So when God tells us to honor them, what does he mean by that? There’s a certain respect that all are owed simply by their personhood, and then there’s a respect that someone deserves because of their role or position. But what if our parents are dishonorable people? Does this...
May 06, 2021•10 min
“You are not an extra in someone else’s vocation story.” We all know breakups are tough, and most of the time they are occasions of intense sadness and hurt, but what happens when your significant other breaks up with you for the religious life? Do you feel angry that they didn’t realize their vocation sooner, guilty for wanting to be with them, or just sad that you’re not who they’re meant to be with? Reactions to this kind of heartbreak are unpredictable, but the important thing to remember is...
Apr 29, 2021•10 min
The Catholic Church loves questions, but are we asking them for the right reasons? One of our Doctors of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, is known for asking the hardest questions we have for our faith. His summa is a book full of them, and some of the greatest saints are the ones that asked the hardest questions. Having questions is not an obstacle, but your intentions can make or break your faith. Today, Father Mike explains how we can question our faith well.
Apr 22, 2021•10 min
The key to a happy death is not a long and fulfilled life—it’s a life of gratitude for the time given. Here’s why: We often forget that this life isn’t owed to us. Every breath we take is a gift from God, who is holding us in existence at this very moment. Once we start to think that this life is owed to us, that in some way we deserve it, we will become ungrateful for the time that is given, even if we’ve lived a long and happy life. Today, Father Mike explains how to fill your life with gratit...
Apr 15, 2021•8 min
The Wednesday of Holy Week is known to many as “Spy Wednesday”, but it’s also known as the “Day of Aloneness.” The backstory behind this moniker can have a profound impact on the way we live our lives. There are two people in the Holy Week narrative that experience profound loneliness: Jesus and Judas. There’s an honorable form of aloneness that we feel when we’re doing something we ought to be doing (walking a road that no one else can), but there’s also a sadder form of loneliness that exists ...
Apr 08, 2021•10 min
During Holy Week, as we contemplate the last hours of Jesus’ life, we get an intimate look at how Jesus prays to his Father. Starting with our Lord’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, we hear Jesus talking to God the Father about the upcoming moments of his life. He continues to pray through his Passion all the way until his last breath—a model that we as sons and daughters of God can follow as well. But what does Jesus show us about what it means to truly pray “Abba, Father”? Ascension is pro...
Apr 01, 2021•7 min
When was the last time you said “yes” to God? In improv, there’s a practice where participants are encouraged to never respond with “no, but” and to instead offer a “yes, and...” This allows for not only growth in the scene but in the actors as well. Similarly, God is always offering us different “scenes” to get us to sainthood. How are we responding? Turning our “no, but” into a “yes, and” opens our life to Christ’s will, and is the quickest path to sanctification. Today, Fr. Mike explains how ...
Mar 25, 2021•9 min
“Blame keeps us stuck...Taking responsibility gives us the opportunity to move forward.” In our difficult, fallen world, we are bound to face struggle. Sometimes our natural response to that struggle is to blame other things or people for why it’s happening—even to blame ourselves. While this makes us feel temporarily better because we are justifying our hardship, it also negates the truth of why we experience struggle—and the graces that can come from it. Today, Fr. Mike explains why it’s alway...
Mar 18, 2021•11 min
Every Christmas we celebrate the fact that Jesus took on our humanity and became one of us. But have we ever asked the question why? Why the Incarnation? You’re definitely not the first to ask this question, and it’s a valid question. Why would God, an all infinite, perfect, and perfectly whole being come to earth to live as a human, and even die a horrible death on the cross? There is nothing he lacks, nothing he doesn’t know, and nothing he needs from us. So, why did he become man? Fr. Mike ai...
Mar 11, 2021•9 min
God is an infinite, perfect, communion of persons, responsible for the intentional creation of everything around us - which begs the question, if God is perfect, why does he need us to worship him? Well, he actually doesn’t. God doesn’t need us to worship him because there is nothing he lacks. Which leads to another question: why do we worship God if he doesn’t need us to? Fr. Mike answers this today, drawing from the earliest books of the Bible. Ascension is proud to partner with authentically ...
Mar 04, 2021•10 min
We often receive the behavior we are willing to tolerate, but what does that mean for our daily interactions? Communication is the clearest way to let someone know how you are feeling. When meeting with someone who you feel is being rude, we may try to give outward signs of our discomfort, but we can’t guarantee they’ll understand unless we tell them directly. And obviously, this isn’t easy. There aren’t many people who love confrontation, and even some that do anything they can to avoid it. We’...
Feb 25, 2021•10 min
What if we were to make all our decisions solely based on how we felt in the moment? You may be familiar with the four types of love: eros (love of desire), storge (love of affection), philia (love of friendship), and agape (self-giving love). While each of these forms of love are good in their own way, they have to be accounted for correctly. Eros is the most temporary of all the loves. Feelings and desires are fleeting. So when we try and make decisions that are based on these desires we have,...
Feb 18, 2021•9 min
What’s the difference between a victim and a martyr? A victim is always described as dying “of” or “from” something. But when you describe a martyr, you talk about what they died for. While a victim is hurt by something, a martyr is suffers for something or someone. While a victim is having something happen to them, a martyr is choosing what happens to them by their will. “...I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” (John 10:17-1...
Feb 11, 2021•7 min
Sometimes the things that we own end up owning us. Detachment prevents this from happening. You may have heard of the minimalist movement that focuses on only having the things you need, and letting go of the things you don’t. Most people practice this by decluttering their house or storage, like you would if you were cleaning out a closet. But it’s not so much having a lot of stuff that’s the problem: it’s being attached to those things, and letting them have a sense of control over your life. ...
Feb 04, 2021•8 min
Why is it easier to fuel our faith at retreats and conferences? Can we have this same fire at home? You can probably reflect on a certain moment or time period in your life that your faith seemed to flourish more than it ever has. Usually this happens when we go on retreats, mission trips, or faith conferences. But along with these moments of powerful formation comes the decline we experience when they’re over, and we go back home. Why is that? Retreats offer us an opportunity to encounter our f...
Jan 28, 2021•7 min
Are you called to be a missionary? You may be one already! Saint Francis Xavier and Saint Therese of Lisieux are co-patrons of missionaries, although they lived very different lives. While St. Francis traveled all over the world proclaiming the gospel of Christ, St. Therese was unable to travel and did what she could in her own town. Both were missionaries in their own right. Being a missionary isn’t about traveling or living a crazy and unpredictable life. It’s about spreading the word of God t...
Jan 22, 2021•8 min
If you begin to sin but don’t follow all the way through… is it still a sin? It depends. We’re offered two different scenarios. In one, the person is prevented from sinning due to external factors that make it impractical or impossible to commit the sin they had planned on. In the second scenario, we see someone preparing to sin, but then freely and rationally choosing not to. The first scenario is a sin, but the second is a virtuous act. Why? Because the second person freely decided not to comm...
Jan 14, 2021•7 min
What do you think of when you hear the phrase, “Love the sinner, hate the sin”? To some, maybe it’s something that their parents would say to them when they heard them gossiping. Maybe it’s something you were taught in school, or maybe it’s a phrase you’ve mocked or not taken seriously. But this phrase is synonymous with one of the greatest commandments Jesus gave us: to love our neighbor as ourselves. Here’s where the connection comes in: We are all sinners. We are all sinners, yet we want the ...
Jan 07, 2021•9 min
It may sound counterintuitive, but choosing the harder path may make our life easier. Here’s why: When caterpillars go into their cocoons for hibernation, they struggle against the barrier of the cocoon for months on end, trying to get out. It’s only when their wings have developed and they’re strong enough to fly that they are able to break free and escape. If a caterpillar were to somehow get set free from its cocoon before it was strong enough to escape on its own, it wouldn’t be able to fly,...
Dec 31, 2020•8 min
We might have had different plans for this year, but were they really supposed to happen? We all wonder whether we’re actually following God’s will for us, but the reality is that, unless we are directly going against the Lord in some way, we are doing his will by just living our life. Wherever this year has taken us, whatever it has us doing, is exactly where God wants us to be. This is one of the joys of being a faithful Christian: as long as we are following the laws of the Lord, we can never...
Dec 25, 2020•8 min
