Category: Behold Vancouver

“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7 Are you giving too much power to the devil? Dave VanVickle shares how we should view Satan. 

Remember he’s just a creature, therefore his power is limited. If we stay close to the Creator, we should not fear!

In this episode, we welcome Arthur and Ester Brooks to talk about marriage, suffering, and the path to lasting love. Arthur and Ester share what it’s like to minister together, revealing both the grace needed and the hard work it takes to love each other faithfully over decades. We also reflect on suffering as an invitation for growth, why pain is fruitful, and how the hardest places in life are where love is purified. Whether you are married, single, or in religious life, intimacy with God is our source of strength for every situation we encounter in life.

Show Notes

One Thing We Love This Week:

• Sister Miriam’s one thing – Heather’s Easter Spotify Playlist

• Michelle’s one thing – Everyone who just came into the Catholic Church!

• Heather’s one thing – Franciscan’s Resurrection Party!

• Heather’s other one thing –  10 Day Pentecost Audio Prayer Plan

• Ester’s one thing – Her husband Arthur!

• Ester’s other one thing – Professional Cycling

• Arthur’s One Thing – Opportunities to witness to the Catholic faith during The Meaning of Your Life book launch

Discussion Questions:    

When are you tempted to be led by your feelings?

When have you had to let go of resisting suffering in the past?

Where in your life, marriage, or relationships do you feel stalled?

How is God inviting you to prioritize Him over your marriage, relationships, and responsibilities?

Journal Questions:

What does it look like to fight well?

How have I witnessed or experienced a marriage that is an antenna to God?

What suffering in my life am I resisting?

What are the discomforts and sufferings I have experienced today that I can thank God for?

Quotes to Ponder:

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”

— Pope John Paul II, World Youth Day, Rome, 2000

Scripture for Lectio Divina:

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.

The autumn air swirled around the skirt of my formal dress while jazz music filled the party tent. My husband and I were attending a work event, and I knew only a small handful of people there. The band was entertaining, and the food was delicious, but anyone who has been in a similar situation knows that engaging in small talk during cocktail hour can get dull and uncomfortable. Then, one of my husband’s colleagues turned to me with a warm smile and asked, “So Catherine, what has been the best part of your day?” 

Instantly, I relaxed into a similar smile as I told her about the haircut I received earlier that morning. We swapped funny stories about haircuts and hairdos — both good and bad — and I found myself enjoying a friendly rapport with a woman I had just met. The party became much more fun after that conversation because I had a new friend to enjoy it with. 

In the weeks that followed, I couldn’t stop thinking about the question she asked me and the impact it had on my night. I had already been asked, “Where are you from?” and “What do you do?” several times. But her question, although equally simple, felt different, and I wanted to know why.

I found an answer in social psychologist Vanessa Van Edwards’ TEDxLondon talk titled, “You are contagious.” In it, she explains that when we are asked a question like, “Been busy lately?” our brains automatically start recalling examples of busyness and stress in order to answer it. If you ask questions that focus on positive or exciting answers like, “What has been the best part of your day?” you trigger a dopamine response in that person as they think about their answer. Then, as Van Edwards says, they can pass that excitement or happiness back to you through their vocal cues and micro expressions, triggering a dopamine response in your own brain. 

As a wife and mother, I regularly find myself in situations that require small talk. I decided to put Van Edwards’ findings to the test to see if I could make small talk more enjoyable for both myself and others. 

Taking Van Edwards’ advice, I started by brainstorming a list of conversation starters that could trigger a dopamine response. I will admit that this felt awkward at first, but I knew if I wanted to avoid the automatic answers that come after, “What do you do?” and “Where are you from?” I needed to be prepared. On Substack, I started a list, and some of my favorites included, “How do you spend your days?”

Why are we so bent on finding an alternative to obeying the living God?

My favorite scene from Excalibur: Young Arthur has removed the sword Excalibur from the stone, thereby becoming king.  People wonder whether this young nobody is king. Arthur brandishes Excalibur, declaring, “Any man, who would be a knight, and follow a king—follow me!”  Oh! I was ready to jump up, shouting, “Take me!” To follow a king for a cause, having good reason to live and die—that touches the heart deeply. We often corrupt that noble longing, attaching it to what isn’t God.

What of Christ the King? Much of the world is either ignorant of him or rejects him. Too many deny God, deny our heavenly king, acting as if there is no Lord to love and serve.

Without a king, how will the soul find purpose? A king calls his people to a glorious destiny. Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Man is a useless passion.” So the world offers a lot of toys to distract us from our misery.

The world says that there’s no Lord to love and serve. Perhaps this is the worst lie of all. The human heart aches to give all the love it can, and to see all of that love completely and gratefully received. The human heart aches to receive constant and faithful love. But the world says we cannot have that perfect loving, because there’s no Lord to love and serve; so the world offers idols take the place of the real love we want to give and receive.

What if we acted on the truth that there is hope, purpose, and love? Believing in a God of hope, our grief would be easier to bear and our worship would be more joyful because we would believe that Jesus has conquered sin and death, and that his victory will be given to us over time and given to us completely at the world’s end. We’d know that anything good apparently lost was never really lost, but offered to God, who will give us all good in his kingdom.

Believing that Christ is our King, then what? Christ told Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. I came into the world to testify to the truth. Anyone committed to the truth hears my voice.” Christ testifies to a terrible and wonderful truth.

The terrible truth: We’re sinners. Sin brings darkness and death.

The glorious truth: Christ comes to rescue us, cleansing us with his own Blood, making us heirs to his kingdom, leading us home to his Father.

The hardest, saddest truth: We often believe that love’s impossible. So, here comes the world, to medicate the pain of our loneliness.  

Gen Z and young millennials are searching more ardently for meaning in life than generations before them. Monsignor James Shea shares firsthand observations on the struggles of young adults today and their deep desire for lives of purpose, as well as practical advice for evangelizing young people—laying the groundwork for a life of Christian faith, discipleship, and holiness.

Every few days, I bake bread, which makes the house smell cozy, slightly sweet and toasty. My husband and daughter love eating a warm slice of rustic bread straight from the oven. Being a family manager is the mission I’m called to do right now; though, it wasn’t always the plan to be this way.  

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had planned to return to my office job after my maternity leave was completed, however, after the birth of my daughter, my health quickly derailed. After four days into motherhood and the excitement of having a baby at home, my husband had to take me to the hospital. 

I was quickly diagnosed with post-partum depression along with mania and psychosis. This diagnosis completely changed the plans of my family. I didn’t want to be at the psychiatric ward where I felt alone and missed my new family. It was a very dark time for both my husband and I. He was solo parenting—making all the decisions around feeding, changing, and getting up in the middle of the night. I, on the other hand, was trying to get enough sleep and become healthy again in my hospital room. 

The separation from my daughter and husband created a wound in my heart that I am still healing from. Feeling like a failure and a burden, every night in the hospital ward, I hung on to the hope that I would get better as I held a picture of my newborn daughter close to me.

My brain needed a lot of time to heal as it was an intense episode and the medicine took a while to be effective. After a month in the psychiatric ward, I was scheduled to use a virtual unit for a few weeks. I would check in with a nurse at least twice a day and once a week with a doctor. My family and l were adjusting to new routines; however, the illness was not getting any easier and the symptoms kept cropping up.  

Six months after giving birth, my doctor, my husband and I decided that it would be better for my health and wellbeing to stay at home with my daughter and not go back to work. I was not fit to work in the state I was in, even though I was released from the hospital. I felt that I was letting my husband down again because I wanted to have an equal share in providing for the family.  I had worked with that employer for twelve years and saying farewell to my colleagues that I had grown to love and care for was a difficult choice.

My wife and I aren’t a textbook couple. We’ve had some pretty nasty arguments that – in the moment – make me feel certain I am not qualified to write an article like this. And we’ve learned (and unlearned) a lot of painful truths along the way.

Marriage is the hardest and most important thing I’ve ever done.

That’s why I think it’s worth discussing as a fellow traveller. So, in that spirit, here are 10 things I’ve found helpful to create deeper connection after more than a decade of marriage:

1. Read the temperature gauge – Maybe you’re excited to be married. Maybe you’re not. Maybe you see your environment as a problem (or maybe your spouse!) Take a second to get a feel for the pulse of things. As Buechner says in his memoir The Sacred Journey, notice your life. That’s going to help you with every step to come.

2. Do not scorn the small stuff – If you’re like me, it’s instinctive for you to chase big wins in your relationship: moments that reward you in the immediate. But as Gandalf says to Frodo, “I have found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.” It may not come naturally to you (it didn’t for me) but a million tiny celebrations have more potential for goodness than one giant, heavy expectation. 

3. Encouragement costs nothing – I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I used to dislike it when my wife thanked me for doing the dishes. “I’m just doing the job that needs to get done,” I would reply, a bit annoyed. Deep down I was embarrassed that I didn’t thank her for doing simple tasks around the house. She was demonstrating to me what simple gratitude could look like. And in a long-term marriage, the necessary tasks get done over and over and over again. “Thank you” creates a positive culture.

4. Your phone is an active agent – Phones are pocket portals into limitless worlds and they are NOT designed to support you during intimate moments with your partner. My wife and I have had a difficult (and on-going) dialogue about when and where and how our phones should be present in our relationship and lives at large. When conducted with sensitivity and judgment-free vocabulary, I think these conversations should keep happening. The conclusions you arrive upon are secondary, in my opinion. It’s the dialogue that’s crucial.

5. You’re not the same person you were – Neither is your partner. The world is a vastly different place than when you first met and you’re evolving within it.

Your identity—what Jesus really calls you—is the foundation for everything (yes, everything!) you do for the rest of your life. Yet too many of us have never heard Jesus speak our true identity to us. Today, Jamie Winship discusses the simple, three-step approach to receiving our true identity so that our hearts, and the world, can truly be transformed by God’s grace. 

This year during Lent, I read the book First Belong to God: On Retreat with Pope Francis. Written in 2024 by Austen Ivereigh, the book shares many teachings of Pope Francis through his encyclicals and from retreats he gave while he was Pope and when he was a Jesuit priest and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

As Easter drew near, I was particularly struck by Bergoglio’s commentary on the fact that Christ’s “self-emptying silence” led people to increase their negative actions towards him; his defenselessness ignited their fury. At a retreat in 1990, Bergoglio stated, “‘At the root of all ferocious attack is the need for people to project their own guilt and limitations.’” 

Rather than admitting our faults and failures, we have the tendency to find fault with others. We see how hate, rather than love, brought former enemies, Pilate and Herod, together in what Ivereigh calls “a perverse kind of unity.” 

We too succumb to the temptation of uniting in negative situations, through gossip or turning a blind eye to those in need. We may even refrain from speaking up in difficult situations and simply follow the crowd, for as Ivereigh states, “even those who know Jesus to be innocent (his disciples, Pilate) go along with what is happening. Caught up in the [scapegoat] mechanism, people are either convinced of the rightness of the violence directed against Jesus, or they are too stunned to oppose it.”

We know that, in the end, Christ triumphed over sin and death; however, just like those of his time who saw the Crucifixion as a failure, many today fail to fully recognize and embrace the victory of the Resurrection, or “are too stunned” to spread its message. 

Bergoglio drew on a theology book that was helpful to him in articulating the misperceptions of Christ’s triumph. Written by Jesuit John J. Navone, the book was entitled Triumph Through Failure, which in its Italian translation is literally, “A Theology of Failure.” 

To those of his time, it seemed that Christ had failed to end Roman rule and convert Israel. Even though he showed many signs of healing and hope throughout his ministry, Jesus’ death led some to believe that following him had been in vain.

Even today, it can be difficult to convince others that Jesus’ apparent “failure” was indeed triumph. Ivereigh, therefore, encourages readers to imagine having to explain the events of the Passion to a visitor, striving to explain the need for Christ’s suffering as the vehicle to overcoming suffering itself. 

Ivereigh goes on to quote Bergoglio’s La Plata retreats where he “described this embrace of failure as Jesus ‘entering into patience.’ Jesus endures, is constant, holds fast, awaits.

If you have ever experienced that pit-in-the-stomach feeling before going to Confession, you are not alone. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a beautiful gift from God, but it can be really nerve-wracking. I believe Confession is incredibly powerful (just ask the exorcists!) and that Jesus is present through the ministry of the priest. I almost always walk away feeling lighter, yet at the same time, my anxious tendency is to avoid whatever makes me uncomfortable, and Confession makes me super uncomfortable.

Ironically, Confession has also helped me understand that I am not some anonymous sinner in God’s eyes: I am his beloved child. Over time, I’ve learned that God wants to encourage me and console me. In this way, Confession has led to greater healing and freedom in my life. If you get nervous before going to Confession, I would like to share three practices that have helped me change my approach to this Sacrament:

1. Prepare for Confession as if it were your last Confession.

If we know we only have one shot at something important, we are going to prepare for it in a different way. When I turned 16 and took my driver’s test, I was keenly aware that if I failed, I would have to get a graduated driver’s license with further restrictions. This motivated me to get it right the first time. The Missionaries of Charity are known for having a sign in their sacristy that reminds the priest to celebrate every Mass as if it were his first Mass, his last Mass, his only Mass. 

I once prepared for Confession as if it were my last. I waited in line, meditating on a passage from the Gospel of Matthew where God says, “Well done, my good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord.” (Matthew 25:23). I let those words soak in like the rain and found myself drenched with longing — longing for God to say those words to me. I thought to myself, if I were to die and appear before the judgment seat of Christ, I want to hear those words. When it was my turn for Confession, I proceeded as usual, recited my list of sins, and received absolution, but before I could hightail it out the door, the priest stopped me and said, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” 

I knew at that moment that God saw me, and he knew my heart’s longing. There was a density of God’s presence in that room. This was an extraordinary experience that helped strengthen my faith in the reality of what happens in Confession. God truly is waiting to forgive, console, and strengthen us.