TOBET Blogs
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...
Spiritual Priesthood for Every Man
Twenty-some years ago, I was flying back from speaking in the Caribbean when God suddenly decided to speak to me. Sometimes, when God invades my being so personally, I cry profusely. This was one of those times. As we flew over the turquoise-blue water of the Bahamas,...
Learning to Imitate God the Father
From The Body Is Good In June, we take time to honor and appreciate fathers in a special way; it is fitting that we take a moment to consider the real significance of fatherhood. For many, the notion of fatherhood has become an increasingly outdated and uncomfortable...
Spiritual Fatherhood
"To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others." –Saint John Paul II It's dinnertime for the family. Kids bring over dishes and help set the table....
Saint Joan For Our Age
The theme of our times, the thread that passes through every aspect of our lives in these 2020’s, is mistrust. We’ve been betrayed, misled and deceived so many times, and by so many we should have been able to rely on. There’s no need to catalogue the betrayals. The...
The Power of the Imagination: Happy and Whole
Just in time for Christmas, TOBET is releasing another storybook entitled Happy and Whole. Author Amy Dedman shares delight in God’s design of the human body with much humor, for pre-school through kindergarten children. When I read Happy and Whole to my special...