Author Archives: Margaret

You may have noticed, especially if you live in the same town as me, that stores and shops are popping up everywhere that profess to hold the answer to whatever struggles we are carrying.  They offer crystals that are “conduits” to “spiritual connections” with “energy fields” of the human person meant to “align” what isContinue reading “The Devil’s in the Details: thoughts on crystals, mediums, tarot, and the occult”

“Come.”  The call is both an echoing roar and a soft, still whisper.  The church is silent, and yet His voice resounds in every corner of my heart. He is here. He is waiting for me at the end of the aisle, and it feels as if He has been waiting for me my wholeContinue reading “Part 10: One Flesh”

Many months had passed.  I was just sitting down at the table to work on a paper for graduate school, when I realized my laptop was dead.   “Dang it,” I muttered to myself.  I sat back in my chair, resting both arms on my now-enormous belly.  I was eight months pregnant with our first child,Continue reading “Part 9: Unity”

“Alright, here we go,” my brother said. He’d been describing the Catholic belief about the Papacy, and he was about to explain the Scriptural and Early Church evidence for these Catholic claims. Or, in my opinion, he was going to try to. “Catholics believe that the earliest Christians understood Peter to be the leader ofContinue reading “Part 8: The Papacy in Scripture and the Early Church”

Months had gone by, and a lot had changed. My brother had become Catholic, effectively beating Beatrice into the Church we’d set out to prevent her from joining. Beatrice became Catholic next. While my passion to learn more about Catholicism was still burning, it had decreased from a bonfire to a smolder. My original impetusContinue reading “Part 7: The Papacy”

Ryan, my husband, was slightly annoyed.  We were standing in the kitchen as I was excitedly sharing what I’d been learning about the early church, the Catholic Church, and the Eucharist.  Was it possible that the Catholic teaching of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist was what Christians had always believed, since theContinue reading “Part 6: Crumbling Walls”

“God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness, freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.  For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man.”   I was sitting on the dock, the first page of the Catechism of the CatholicContinue reading “Part 5: The Eucharist and the Early Church”

There is an epic moment in one of the inarguably-greatest movies of all time – ‘The Sandlot’ – when Timmy Timmons walks away from another failed attempt to retrieve his friend’s baseball from “the beast’s” yard.  Timmy shakes an enormous amount of dust out of his hair and makes a solemn pronouncement:  “We’ve been goingContinue reading “Part 4: A Paradigm Shift”

“WAIT.  Wait, wait, wait!”   I was fuming.  I was mid-debate with Beatrice (still not her real name), and it was not going well.   “So, you’re telling me that if I were to go to Mass, I couldn’t receive communion?  What the heck!”  I ranted.  “Are you joking?” “Well,” Beatrice began.  I cut her off.  “WhatContinue reading “Part 3: The Eucharist”

I sat at the kitchen table, drumming my fingers and glaring at my computer screen.  For the tenth time in as many minutes, I sighed in frustration. Unsettled by the problem of doctrinal disagreement (or else relativism) among modern-day Christians, and wanting to understand why I should trust the authority of any denomination over another,Continue reading “Part 2: Authority”