TOBET Blogs
Our Identity: Rooted in Gratitude
“What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me? … I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name of the Lord.” (Ps. 116:12, 17) The American holiday of Thanksgiving is a wonderful reminder of the importance of gratitude, a virtue...
Halloween, Holiness, and Happiness
As Halloween approaches, I think about candy and haunted houses, Trick or Treat and the color orange, spooky decorations, and the World Series. But perhaps I need to be reminded that Halloween originated as a celebration of All Hallow’s Eve, the day before we...
The Beauty Beyond the Fall
The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. This October marks ten years since I lost one of my good college friends who died tragically from a...
Life Without Limits
Recently, in my sixth decade, I moved cross-country to begin a second master’s degree program. It certainly wasn’t my idea (but God’s!) to uproot my flourishing life, filled with the warmth, sunshine, and outdoor activities in Phoenix and sequester myself in study...
Unless a Grain of Wheat Shall Fall
From The Body and Reverence. Illustrated by Gary Undercuffler When I was a teenager, I worked 70 hours a week during the summer at Continental Grain Company in Ft. Worth so that I was able to pay my way through Nolan Catholic High School. At Continental Grain, I...
Returning to the Garden
For most Americans, the month of September marks a turning point where the fall season is in clear sight – leaves slowly begin turning colors, the morning air has a subtle unmistakable crispness, and social media fills with friends’ shameless promotions of pumpkin...
Hungry for Reality
At my last haircut, the stylist relayed her excitement from her family’s recent experience of using a virtual reality (VR) headset. Now first, for any fellow elder Millennials out there (i.e., those older than their twenties) who feel out of touch with the times, a VR...
Tending the Sheep
Sheep have been appearing regularly in the Mass readings the past month. A few weeks ago, we heard the warning to the shepherds in Jeremiah 23. The following week, we saw Jesus moved with pity for the people, who seemed like sheep without a shepherd, and sang Psalm...
Freedom: Burden or Gift? What We Can Learn from St. John Paul II
The recent celebration of Independence Day is an opportunity to reflect upon our country’s great esteem for the value of freedom. Here, one does not need to be a scholar or historian to recognize that the idea of freedom has undergone—or I should more accurately...
The Heroic Fatherhood of Priests
Fr. Paul Schulte, Oblate of Mary Immaculate (©"The Flying Priest Over The Arctic" by Fr. Paul Schulte, Harper & Bros, 1940.) Meet Fr. Paul Schulte, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate and the sort of priest you’d love to have had for your spiritual father. Paul was in...