Tag: Christianity

Living faith: challenging, rewarding, becoming who we should be

July 11, 2024
Seattle Sunset

We occasionally meet someone who has clearly become the person they were meant to be. I know such a person right now – aspiring to be like them helps push me forward in living my faith, to put faith concepts into practice.

Truly being a person of faith isn’t merely about sitting in a pew on Sundays.

Certainly, sitting in a pew is part of “showing up.” The pews are part of where we learn – a gateway into faith, so to speak.

Whether we are truly living our faith is about whether we engage when attending church combined with what we do outside of church.

This was articulated well by Bishop Frank Schuster (Seattle): “God doesn’t want to be an app that we pull up occasionally. Rather, God wants to be our operating system that runs our lives.”

What does it mean to have God be the operating system that runs our lives? Simply put, God is only going to be the operating system that runs our lives when we assent to allow this.

Assenting to allow God be our operating system means:

  • Learning about God and faith, to the limited degree that we can (another Seattle-area priest, Fr. Tim Clark, verbally observed that our efforts to understand God and describe God really only “get around the edges…. Think of God as a circle, with our efforts to understand God and describe God as sometimes touching some parts of that circle).
  • Assenting that it’s God who is the ultimate reality, that we are junior parties to a relationship with God, that we are meant to follow God’s lead.
  • Developing a prayer-centered relationship with God. Just as our relationships with people require communication and social interaction, having a relationship with God requires communication and social interaction – which happens in prayer. More on prayer here.
  • Truly letting God into our hearts. “It is no longer I, but God who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). We often don’t do such a great job of transforming our lives on our own. Allowing God to shape us is crucial to becoming the people we are meant to be.
  • Loving the people around us. Christ was asked, which of the commandments is greatest? He responded in Matthew 22:34-40: “The greatest commandments are…love the Lord your God….and….love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
  • “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Galatians 16:14). There’s a lot to unpack here. If we hold up everything we think and do to this standard, we can spend our entire lives getting closer to living the loving lives we are meant to live.

Interested in an improved prayer life? Reminder: faith sharing groups about our prayer lives are starting on Zoom with A Parish Catechist on Saturday, July 20 (8:00 am, Pacific Time). More info here (including a Zoom link) – we would love to have you join in!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). Also, your support ($$) to help sustain this blog is welcome.

How-to list: steps to living our faith as love

June 24, 2024
Stairs, moss

The purpose of being a person of faith is ultimately about “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).

Christ was asked, “Which of the commandments is greatest?” He responded, ““Love God and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:34-40).

So, how do we live our lives as our faith calls us to? Several steps – if applied – move us forward in love (kudos for these steps you already put into practice!):

  • Love God. God is love. We spend time with the people we love; thus, loving God requires spending time with God in prayer (note: prayer isn’t just a one-way conversation of us talking to God. Prayer is a relationship. Relationships go both ways – in addition to communicating to God, allow God to be present in prayer, be attentive to God’s loving presence.). Twenty minutes in daily prayer is feasible. Regular prayer transforms us, increases both our faith and how our faith unfolds in our lives!
  • Loving God requires loving God’s children. This is both a spiritual truth and applies our faith toward the greater social good (this spiritual truth is spoken of in 1 John 4:20). Everyone is a child of God – no exceptions. Even the people we don’t like are beloved children of God (that’s hard!). It can be easy to cultivate a loving relationship with God (the “faith is exclusively a relationship between me and God” syndrome) – it’s harder to apply our faith to learning to love any people we’d rather avoid. However, learning to love people we’d rather avoid (or even hate!) forces us to grow into becoming better people – faith in action! The world becomes a better place as a result.
  • Apply generosity of spirit throughout each day. As the saying goes, “everyone loves a cheerful giver.” Through this principle, we become better people and contribute positively to our communities and the individuals within our communities.
  • Go the extra mile to be a caring person when interacting with people. Be the one to help build community, to be a force for good. Result: people feel cared for!
  • Get involved in relieving the needs in your community. Volunteer where needed, donate to charity. We can all be involved in making our community a better place.
  • Make time for people when they need you. Be present when someone is vulnerable. This is sometimes easy when it’s someone we care about it, when the topic-at-hand is an easy one, and we can easily make time. Sometimes, though, being present when someone feels vulnerable is hard. Work at it, people need you. It’s a good, important way to support people.
  • Be the one to forgive, even when it’s hard. This is the right thing to do, it heals relationships. Sometimes, we need to be the bigger person (even when we don’t want to!).
  • Find something good in everyone. Nearly everyone – even the people who are difficult – have positive traits. Compliment people’s strengths.
  • In marriages, apply the “60/40 rule.” If both spouses spend 60% of their marital effort thinking about meeting the other spouse’s needs (rather than focusing on “what do I want out of this marriage”), the marriage will go well. A great strategy!
  • Build people up. Family, friends, co-workers.
  • Give children and pets – everyone who is vulnerable (sick folks, marginalized individuals, etc. – your undivided attention. When we are good to people who can’t do anything for us – we’re living as well as we ought to.
  • Commit random acts of kindness. The more, the better.
  • Cultivate empathy.
  • Allow God to clean up your character flaws. Often time, our flaws get reduced better with God’s help. Our imperfections don’t help anybody!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). Also, your support ($$) to help sustain this blog is welcome.

Book Review: The Orthodox Way

June 12, 2024
Book Title: The Orthodox Way

The back cover of this book describes The Orthodox Way as follows:

“This book is a general account of the doctrine, worship and life of Orthodox Christians by the author of the now classic THE ORTHODOX CHURCH. It raises the basic issues of theology…. helps to fill the need for a modern Orthodox catechism… Throughout the book, Father Ware shows the meaning of Orthodox doctrine for the life of the individual Christian.”

For readers who have anything of a contemplative bent or an interest in mysticism, I find the book to be an important read for growing one’s faith (the Orthodox church has a very definite contemplative vein within it). I recently quoted The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware in a previous blog post:

“The Greek Fathers liken man’s encounter with God to the experience of someone walking over the mountains in the mist: he takes a step forward and suddenly finds that he is on the edge of a precipice, with no solid ground beneath his foot but only a bottomless abyss.”

I read this book a year or two ago. I find myself coming back to it; statements such as the one above feed my prayer life. This is the type of book I read before going to bed – a book to lift one’s spirits. A worthwhile read!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!).

We need each other: small group faith sharing

June 4, 2024
Clonmacnoise window

As we seek to grow in faith, we need each other.

This idea that we need each other in faith is observed and communicated time and again:

  • “No man is an island.”
  • “We are all radically incomplete. And we need each other.” Timothy Radcliffe at the October, 2023 Synod in Rome.
  • A person of faith who I admire wrote: “we all need to have encouragement and some checks & balances from other seekers in regard to our experiences, otherwise we can fall into despair, or begin to believe that our own experience is the fullest measure of truth, which is dangerous.”
  • Etc.

We learn in faith from faith leaders – pastors, book authors, etc. We also learn from one another.

Sometimes, there is a desire to go it alone in our faith:

  • “I am independent. I am capable of learning. I know my conscience – I will find a faith path that suits my conscience and my lifestyle. I will grow in faith by sitting home alone reading books on spirituality.”
  • Sometimes, people variously add….. “I don’t like our current pastor at church…” Or, “I don’t care for organized religion…”
  • Perhaps: “I will supplement faith reading by going on nature walks or going to occasional conferences or retreats.”
  • “I have an active prayer life. I will allow God to direct my life. It’s ‘me and God.'”
  • “Of course, I will work continually be a better person.”

In fact, we need each other. The email I quoted above goes on to say, “we need each other, and I believe that God designed us that way.” Even hermits at monasteries have occasional contact with the other members of their monastic communities!

Christ was asked, “Which of the commandments is greatest?” He responded, ““Love God and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:34-40). Loving your neighbor, of course, involves generosity of spirit to the people in our lives and supporting people who need support – it involves us interacting with one another, being in community.

Faith communities provide just that – communities where our faith is nurtured, where we hold ourselves to account, where we support the faith growth of our fellow faith travelers, and where we learn to more fully love our neighbor. Within such a context, small group faith sharing provides distinct and useful opportunities to learn and grow in faith, to support our fellow faith travelers. Local faith communities – churches, topic-specific communities such as prayer-based organizations, etc. – often provide small group settings ranging from Bible studies to prayer groups, life-stage groups (young adults, moms, retirees, etc.), topic-specific learning communities, and service activities (cleaning the parish, feeding the homeless, etc.). Please feel welcome to look up and join a faith sharing small group in your community.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!).

Book Review: Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs

April 17, 2024
Dictionary: Early Christian Beliefs

There was a time when I would have read this reference book from cover to cover (I am among the readers who believe that when I read a book, I should read the entire book…..).

This is a useful, scholarly book to have on one’s bookshelf as a reference to inform one’s study of any number of topics. I am reading some of it now and plan to refer to it on occasion as the reference book it is intended to be.

Christianity is 2,000 years old. In 2024, the majority of us – with the possible exception of those Biblical scholars who specialize in Early Christian Literature – are not going to be familiar with the ins and outs of the topics discussed in the early church. Nor are most of us current on the etymology of what every word meant 2,000 years ago (“dictionary definitions” of words and the cultural context of vocabulary changes over time…).

“Sure,” some will say, “We know what early Christians were talking about. They were talking about Jesus, the resurrection, the gospels, and how to be Christian.” Yes, that’s true. But how exactly did those conversations unfold in Palestine, Greece, Turkey, etc. in, say, the year 75, 125, or 300 AD?

The gospels weren’t written down until several decades after Christ’s death. Jesus said during his lifetime that he would return during “this generation;” thus, it initially seemed unnecessary to Jesus’ contemporaries to write down his life and teachings for future generations…. Eventually, it started to become clear that he wasn’t coming back imminently, so his narrative began to be written for posterity. It then took time for the early church to decide which gospels – from among the gospels that were written down – are canonical (accepted as church doctrine). It wasn’t immediately clear to the early church that “the Bible” was going to include (and only include) Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Likewise, it took time for the early church to develop and “come together” on any number of topics that we recognize today as “Christianity.”

So, precisely which “Christian topics” were under discussion in the early days of Christianity? This book – A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs – provides useful insights in to this question. Having this reference on one’s bookshelf can inform our understanding in any number of settings – when studying Sunday’s readings at church, when we want to learn more about a specific aspect of Christianity, when studying church history, etc.

A sampling of several topical entries in this 704-page resource include:

  • Christ, Divinity (how the early church came to understand this one topic gets 25 pages!)
  • Descent into Hades
  • Gifts of the spirit
  • “Keys of the Kingdom”
  • Patriarchs
  • Paul, apostle
  • Prayer
  • Rapture
  • Schism
  • At the end of the book, there are “Quotable quotes from the Early Christians.”

I appreciate having this book on my bookshelf.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).

Pondering Judas, Job, and the Prodigal Son

March 18, 2024

Every year. we hear the salvation story at Easter . God loved us so much that he sent his only son to die for our sins.

Our salvation involved Jesus’ death, so his death was predestined. So, someone – some human – had to somehow be complicit in Jesus’ death?

When Judas came to realize what he had done – that he had betrayed Jesus such that this betrayal was to involved in the circumstances of Jesus’ death – he took his own life.

Given that it seems that one of us – some human – had to somehow be complicit in Jesus’s death…. Hmmm…. This raises difficult questions about the circumstances involvingJudas.

It’s fine for God to decide to die for our sake. But to necessitate that some human(s) be complicit? Have some human(s) end up with Jesus’ betrayal on their conscience? How fair is that?

When I raised this for discussion with someone recently, I heard it argued that Judas had free will. He didn’t have to betray Jesus. Further, Judas repented to the chief priests and elders when he realized the consequences of what he had done (that Jesus was to be crucified). But, somehow someone had to be complicit in Jesus’ death (betrayal, hanging Christ on the cross)? So, someone was going to have this on their conscience – somehow? I also heard it said that free will means that Judas didn’t have to take his own life. He could have asked God for forgiveness (in fact, he did go so far as repenting to the chief priests – Matthew 27: 1 – 10).

What would you or I have done if we saw that we had betrayed Jesus toward death? Would we give in to despair the same way Judas did and take our own lives? Would we request forgiveness? Become bitter? Or??? It feels to me that such a burden would be worse than being Job.

Is there a way that Christ could have died for us without any individual humans ending up with a burden heavier than Job?

It didn’t occur to me until this week – when pondering Judas’ perspective – that Judas had the option of asking God’s forgiveness rather than giving into despair to the point of taking his own life. Requesting such forgiveness would have been amazingly difficult to do!!!! It took some effort to wrap my head around this. If Judas had the option of asking for God’s forgiveness – “The Prodigal Son on a much grander scale” – then what of us?

When we fall into despair – whether because of challenging circumstances seemingly beyond our control or because of difficult results of our own choices – how well do we turn to God and accept God’s love – and redemption, when necessary – in our lives? Compared to Judas [“Anguish beyond that of (of course, innocent rather than guilty] Job!” is my new phrase to contemplate guilty Judas), what’s so impossible in our circumstances that we can’t turn to God…. and to enter into a healing relationship with God in whatever form is necessary (forgiveness, redemption, allowing God to love us toward wellness, etc.)?

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).

Death and new life

March 6, 2024
bird nest in tree

This image of an empty bird’s nest in a winter tree – with spring approaching – speaks visually to nature’s annual cycles of death and the anticipation of new life.

Seattle – where I live – is in the midst of a cold snap after a period of relative winter warmth. Many of us are ready for the increasing warmth and life that comes with the pending spring.

When I saw this empty bird’s nest and the similar-or-contrasting lack of leaves on the tree, I immediately thought of our own spiritual death, rebirth, and – for many people – the perpetual hope of new life. In Christianity, we learn to die to self. Christ died and rose again – for our salvation. Bird nests are often used year after year for the next year’s new baby birds. Annual cycles of new life. Soon, new leaves – another year of life (the color green of leaves symbolizes vibrancy) – will also begin to spring forth on this winter-cold, bare tree.

When I first tried to photograph this bird’s nest, I zoomed in with my camera in an attempt to photograph the bird’s nest and leaf-less tree branches – without the electrical and phone wires that are also visible when photographing the entire tree (i.e., the photo above).

I then realized that there is also value in photographing the broader tree showing the phone and electrical wires showing (see the photo below). Too often, we desire the vibrant new life that comes from dying to the darkest parts of ourselves…. Yet we let the wires in our lives – those distractions that prevent us from allowing God to rejuvenate new life in us – to prevent new vibrancy of life to emerge in us. Sticking to such distractions serves no good in our lives. How stubborn we can be in refusing to let go of that which keeps us bound to the darkness in and around us.

During this Lenten season, we anticipate the anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection at Easter. Let us – during this Lenten season – allow God into our hearts to clean out that in each of us that needs to be cleansed. Welcome in new life of the spirit.

Allowing God to transform us into new life requires surrender. We give up control. We give up autonomy. In a sense, we give up whatever sense of “self” we cling to (“I may not like all of me, but ‘me’ is what I’ve got”). In today’s society, many of us must also begin to give up rampant individualism – an individualism that isolates us – to join the community of people around and among us. We are meant to live amongst one another.

Easter is coming.

bird nest in tree with wires


Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).

Further consideration of “Embodying Forgiveness”

January 26, 2024
Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis

I reviewed L. Gregory Jones’ book Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis in early January. The book is important enough to discuss a second time. 

Embodying Forgiveness is not a quick read. It’s written rather academically. It is densely packed with important ideas that require thoughtful reading. The book is about a sometimes difficult topic that can take great commitment to apply in one’s life. The book also supports a well-lived faith in which we – as a friend often says – do the “adulting” of living one’s faith (i.e., we grow up and live out the responsibilities we are called to do. In fact, this book helps us “find our inner adult!”). This is the type of book to read when we want to move beyond “easy principles of faith” and fluffy phrases to a faith in which we grow and mature. In other words – it draws us toward meaningful liberation and to living in right relationship with God and the people in our lives. The principles in this book can be intimidating, but that doesn’t mean that the book is a “nonjoyous downer – it’s liberating. In this book, we learn about living for our community rather than being self-centric. We learn about giving up self without being a doormat.  Good news: the author draws readers toward practicing forgiveness, making it palatable when forgiveness feel unpalatable.

This book is so important that I’m posting several excerpts (hint: yes, this is an effort to tempt readers to read the book!):

  • “Forgiveness has long been hard to embody, even among those committed to its importance” (page xi).
  • “…the craft of forgiveness involves the ongoing and ever deepening process of unlearning sin through forgiveness and learning, through specific habits and practices, to live in communion – with the Triune God, with one another, and with the whole Creation” (page xii).
  • The ideas in this book move “beyond….pious, sentimental affirmations that ‘Jesus is my friend,'” to friendship being “a much more formative and transformative relationship” (page xiii).
  • “….forgiveness serves primarily not to absolve guilt but as a reminder, a gracious irritant, of what communion with God and with one another can and should be: and so it should enable and motivate our protest against any situation where people (either ourselves or others) are diminished or destroyed” (page xvi).
  • “….the purpose of forgiveness is the restoration of communion, the reconciliation of brokenness” (page 5).

I am the type of reader who thinks that a book worth reading should be read in its’ entirety. In the case of this book, reading even just a chapter or two – and really applying it in one’s life – would move a person forward in a faith well-lived. A worthwhile read!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).

Perspectives: how we engage with specific faith concepts

January 17, 2024

Christian writers and denominations variously emphasize different religious ideas. ”Are we justified by faith or by works,” etc…..

In being a person of faith, we don’t get to choose whether the principles of faith are applicable in our lives. Just as we don’t choose whether gravity affects our physical movement or whether we need oxygen to survive, we don’t get to choose whether being faithful is contingent upon growing in “love your neighbor,” whether we should live the ten commandments, if we should develop our prayer lives, etc.

While we don’t get to choose whether truths of faith are applicable in our lives, it’s interesting to ponder how we engage with these ideas. Right now, for example, I’m reading L. Gregory Jones’ book Embodying Forgiveness (an important read!). He states in the book’s early pages that we can only receive God’s grace through learning to forgive (that’s how I read what he said, anyway). Yes, forgiveness is a nonnegotiable, important practice and we receive grace by forgiving others (“forgive us our trespasses as we forgive….”). With that said, I have experienced God’s grace in a situation unrelated to forgiveness (I tell that story here). Just because I’ve experienced God’s loving grace in a situation other than one of forgiveness -seemingly at odds with what I read – doesn’t mean that I don’t accept the need to forgive others in order to be in good relationship with God and with the people around me. 

As for the question of whether we are justified by faith or by good works, I accept my denomination’s argument that we are justified by faith. There are people who do good works without being a person of faith – but one cannot be truly faithful without performing good deeds. A faithful life calls us to care for other people (i.e., “faith without works is dead”).

Some faith precepts “get our attention” at different times in our lives (and in different ways). That’s okay. Engaging with the faith principles that reach us at any given time will lead us in “continuous conversion.” “The first work of the Holy Spirit is conversion. Moved by grace, man turns towards God…..(CCC#1989).” As long as we are engaged in growing in faith – with a healthy level of discipline – we are moving forward (I am drawn to the idea of continuous conversion!). What matters most – I think – is that we allow God to direct us in the direction(s) God wants us to go. When dry periods in our faith experience come along – and they do – we must simply continue trying to grow in faith. Even John of the Cross (my second-favorite mystic, after Teresa of Avila with whom he worked) wrote of seemingly dry periods (he said to continuing praying even when prayer seems dry – or dark; he rightly said that we’ll see afterward that God has worked within us during dry/dark periods of prayer, even if we didn’t see it at the time).

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).

List: examples of faith being hard work, path to joy

January 12, 2024
Stairs, moss

Living Christianity is both hard work and a path to joy and freedom.

Examples of having to work at living Christianity include:

  • “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). Putting faith into practice – such as giving up our attachment to worldly goods – is a challenge.
  • The bumper sticker “Love your neighbor means everybody” (a reflection on Matthew 22: 34-40: “The greatest commandments are…love the Lord your God….and….love your neighbor as you love yourself.”) speaks to the heart of Christianity and of the Christian faith being hard work.  It’s easy to love the people we like. It’s harder to love people who we are naturally inclined to dislike (the disheveled homeless person who went through our trash and left a mess, a political figure we disagree with, the difficult relative, an argumentative person at work, etc.). Yet, “love your neighbor” does mean “everybody” – we don’t get to pick and choose. Many or all aspects of living the Christian faith are required to practice treating everyone with dignity and grace. Loving people is a verb – a self-giving action. If we were all to practice this well (hard work!), the world would be a better place.
  • The pastor and writer L. Gregory Jones writes (in his book Embodying Forgiveness) ““Christian forgiveness involves a high cost, both for God and for those who embody it. It requires the disciplines of dying and rising with Christ, disciplines for which there are no shortcuts, no handy techniques to replace the risk and vulnerability of giving up ‘possession’ of one’s self, which is done through the practices of forgiveness and repentance.” Yes, there is a ‘high cost’ to doing forgiveness – but also high rewards.

While there are plenty of examples of how living one’s faith is a lifelong effort (an “ongoing conversion,” in challenging ways such as those noted above), there are also joys:

  • “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phillipians 4:7).”
  • “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled (Matthew 5:6).”
  • Living faith principles – including surrender to allowing God to transform us – turns us into the people God intends for us to be. God wants us to be happy and will – if we allow it – adjust who we are to that purpose.
  • In living out the principles of faith, we contribute positively to our communities – helping to make the world a better place.
  • Living faith principles teaches us to bring joy into the lives of other people – which is among the primary reasons for us to be alive. We are all God’s children; bringing joy into the lives of God’s children is a wonderful thing!

The Christian path is a great, joyous path. A loving path that turns us into better people.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).