Sister Laurie Brink, OP: Uncovering the hard, gritty yet beautiful Truth

A Science Student's Musings on Young Adult Spirituality

Tim Winter, a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology, responded to Fr. James Bacik's presentation about young adult spirituality at the Catholics On Call Partners Conference in October 2005.

Rachel Hart: Getting Paid for Something She Loves

Rachel Hart, a campus minister and graduate student at Loyola University in Chicago, spoke of her own call and vocational discernment to pursue a life of ministry.  Below is the story she shared at the 2005 Catholics On Call Partners Conference:

Dorothy Day: Building a Dwelling Place for God's People

Our lives are like houses.  When we build and create we are at the core of answering God’s call.  When we invite others into our homes we are like Christ. This is the witness of Dorothy Day’s calling.

A Reflection on the Vatican Statement about Homosexuality and the Priesthood

This week the Vatican Congregation for Education issued an instruction related to the criteria for admission to Roman Catholic seminaries and to the sacrament of Holy Orders. The instruction was approved by Pope Benedict XVI. There was a great deal of speculation about this statement during the months before its release and, undoubtedly, there will be vigorous discussion of it in the media and among Catholics in the coming weeks.

God's Call in the Life of John Paul II

The overwhelming response of people throughout the world to the final illness and death of Pope John Paul II gave testimony to the impact this man of faith made on so many, Christians and non-Christians alike. This pope seemed to have a special bond with youth and young adults, as witnessed by the number of young women and men filing through Saint Peter’s Square to view his body.

Becoming A Person of Prayer: Part III

Becoming A Person of Prayer: Part II

In our “last episode” of this series on becoming a person of prayer, we listened to the description of prayer given by Bishop Robert Morneau. In his article “Principles of Prayer,” Bishop Morneau tells us that prayer is essentially loving attention (Spiritual Direction: Principles and Practices, Crossroad, 1996). Morneau then offers us a second, very important, principle of prayer. As he puts it, “In prayer, I must bring this me to the living God.”

Becoming A Person of Prayer: Part I

Responding to God’s call in our lives requires that each of us become a person of prayer. Reading those words may initially give us the willies. It may sound as if we need to flee to the desert or to a monastic cell and live in solitude, completely removed from the everyday “stuff” of our lives. But that is not really the case. We become a person of prayer where we are now, not in some ideal “spiritual location” we may imagine in our daydreams.

Free -- For What?

Why in the world would I want to understand my life as a call from someone else? Wouldn't such an idea curtail my personal freedom? Wouldn't it get in the way of my career? Shouldn't I be able to decide from within what I want to do with my life? After all, I have only one life to live.