This article was originally published in The Catholic News Herald of the diocese of Charlotte. I love to meditate on the many titles of St. Joseph. As I have grown in awareness and devotion to him over the last several years, his litany has become one of my favorite prayers. Different titles will resonate with me at different times and in different circumstances of life. I’ve also discovered that the litany can make for a good examination of conscious, drawing to the fore of my mind certain sins or vices with which I might be struggling, and with the added benefit that I can then immediately petition St. Joseph to aid me in overcoming them. We must be careful not to let his titles limit St. Joseph in our minds, however. One might think that he is only worth turning to if you are a father or if you work in manual labor or are nearing death. The truth is that the patronages of St. Joseph are universal, virtues that apply to each one of us – regardless of gender, age or circumstances. St. Joseph is Head of the Holy Family, Spouse of the Mother of God, and Foster Father of the Son of God. He is the Glory of Domestic Life and the Pillar of Families. We all come from a family, whether it is whole or broken, whether we knew our parents and had a relationship with them or not. Perhaps the family that you came from is a source of strength for you, or perhaps it is a wound that you need God’s grace to heal. St. Joseph is a model to all of us, because he shows us what true domestic...

This article was originally published in The Catholic News Herald of the diocese of Charlotte. Only recently have I become a devotee of the Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor, although her collection of short stories sat on my bookshelf for many years. I was aware that she was an important figure, both as a writer and as a Catholic. Her short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is studied at various levels in academia, and she was certainly a master at her craft. Yet, when I tried to dip into her work previously, I never found it particularly appealing. Her characters are rarely likable, and the situations that they are in are rarely pleasant. There is often violence, as well as despair; it does not make for light reading and can be challenging on both an intellectual and spiritual level. However, the other thing that I noticed about her stories when I did read them was that I couldn’t let them go. I would always be left thinking about them, drawn back to read them a second or even a third time. There was something about them that kept working on me. It was only when I read the collection of her prose essays, Mystery and Manners, that O’Connor herself gave me the answer to the riddle of her work and the power of it. Born in Savannah, Ga., in 1925 to a Catholic family, O’Connor seems never to have swerved or deviated in her commitment to the faith. She also was dedicated to the art and craft of fiction writing. Though she died from lupus at the young age of 39, she left such...

This article was originally published in The Catholic News Herald of the diocese of Charlotte. This past year, I’ve been working my way through a reading of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem “The Divine Comedy,” in which the poet narrator travels first through the circles of hell, then climbs the mountain of purgatory, and ultimately reaches the paradise of heaven. As we enter into the month of November, a time the Church has designated especially for praying for the souls of the dead, it is particularly fitting that I am about halfway through my reading of purgatory. One of the things that struck me as I read of the trials of the souls in purgatory, especially compared with the punishments of the souls in hell, is the hope and the knowledge that there will ultimately be joy. The souls in purgatory have already been judged, and heaven awaits them. The theology surrounding purgatory is not always easy for our minds to grasp. It’s easy for us to naively equate the purifications of purgatory with the punishments of hell, but they are not the same. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of the eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (CCC 1030). In C.S. Lewis’ book “Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer,” he puts it this way: “Our souls demand purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if...

This article was originally published in The Catholic News Herald of the diocese of Charlotte. “And who knows if you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” These are the words spoken to Queen Esther in the Old Testament, when she is being asked to risk the wrath of her husband the king in order to save the lives of the Israelites. Esther is asked to endanger her own comfort and security, even her life, for the sake of her people. As the Jewish people were facing annihilation, Esther herself was in no immediate danger in the palace of the king, as long as she remained silent about her heritage. However, she recognized the privileged position she had been given by God, and she used her voice to sway the heart of the king to mercy. I love the Book of Esther, for it has something of the elements of a fairy tale. A beautiful, kind queen; a powerful, imposing king; dark plots of vengeance and malice, and the ultimate triumph of good and of truth. Esther was raised up from obscurity to become queen, given riches and jewels, was beautiful and beloved by all, but she never lost her meekness, humility and devotion to the Lord. And when it mattered, she was willing to sacrifice everything she had, even her very life, to speak the truth to the king, whether he would hear it or no. We see a similar scene in the New Testament, as the wife of Pontius Pilate risks the scorn and anger of court officials to plead on behalf of Jesus. She is the only one to speak up in his...