Category: Behold Vancouver

About eight years ago, I went to confession with a Dominican priest in a gorgeous chapel in Nashville, Tennessee. Despite the beautiful architecture that framed this sacramental encounter, I was distressed. I couldn’t, for the life of me, stick to any sort of consistent prayer life, I told the priest who sat across from me in his flowing white cassock. My commitment to any sort of focused prayer time – even just 10 minutes of undivided attention for Jesus! – was fraught with laziness, forgetfulness and a persistent lack of prioritization. I would repeatedly renew my commitment to a personal prayer time, but I would never make it more than a few days before I missed a day of prayer. 

This priest – whose name I do not know – will forever be endeared to me for his American directness. 

“What time do you get up in the morning?” 

“Oh, well, I don’t have a set time that I get up each day. It really depends on what’s happening in my life.” 

“Well that won’t work. If you want to be holy, you need to pick a time to get up each morning.” 

That day in confession was an epiphany for me. Through his serious tone, kind heart and direct words, that Dominican priest woke me up to the seriousness of having a routine for holiness.

He clarified for me that one does not spontaneously become a saint. Grace is abundant and we are utterly dependent on the grace of God, but in order to become saints, we need to actively work with grace. A practical way that we can work with grace is to commit to a routine that draws us to Jesus. 

This principle of routine that the Dominican priest introduced to me, I later came to know as a “rule of life.” 

Having a “rule of life” is a Catholic tradition wherein a person selects a set of commitments or “rules” to follow each day in order to consistently grow closer to Jesus. Most religious orders follow a detailed rule of life that governs when they get up, what prayers and for how long they pray each day, meal times, etc. For the laity, we are generally not called to live a religious-style rule of life. However, the principle of having unchanging commitments that ensure that we remain in a momentum of holiness is just as critical for the laity as it is for a priest, religious or consecrated person.

My life has often been akin to what we all experience during the summer holidays: lots of flux and irregularities and spontaneity. Yet even amid summertime vacation or an irregular lifestyle,  having a rule of life transforms the question of “will I pray?”

Do you struggle to handle criticism well? Do you get defensive even when you know there’s room to grow? 

Fr. Mike Schmitz discusses how to handle criticism, exploring three primary approaches: denial, acceptance, and gratitude. He emphasizes the importance of discerning what part of the criticism is true, acknowledging those truths, and discarding the falsehoods to avoid unnecessary self-condemnation.

My 6-year-old daughter and I recently started reading chapter books together. The experience of a narrative slowly unfolding mesmerizes her. The story, “Wildsmith,” by Liz Flanagan, pulls her in, capturing her interest and holding it tightly over the days it takes us to complete the book. Each night she begs for “just one more chapter” and scans the occasional illustration for hints at the upcoming plot. These encouraging signs of a lifelong reader warm the hearts of her bookworm parents. 

What a gift to journey into a story with someone experiencing it for the first time. What a blessing for the seasoned reader to wade into the narrative alongside someone completely unaware of the tried-and-true tropes and where the winding stream of plot will whisk them. 

The wonder, excitement, and sheer enjoyment of these first encounters with a story convey magic to the reader. Reading alongside my daughter reminds me of that time long ago when I first cracked open a beloved book; the first time I came across a lamppost in a snowy wood, or a hobbit snug in his hole until a knock sounded on the door. 

These moments of discovery linger with us as readers. They grant us a glimpse of something beyond our world and yet intrinsically connected to our own experience. We need to be reminded of these original moments of magic, of those times in our lives when the story was fresh and more powerful for it. 

My daughters remind me of this wonder of discovery in more than fiction. When we read stories from Scripture, their reactions are undiluted by familiarity. Each plot point is baffling and at times frustrating for them. Their flabbergasted interruptions of: “They put Mary in a stable? With animals? Why wouldn’t anyone give up their hotel room?!” are all valid questions. Their practical queries raise similarly astute concerns, “If God gave Adam and Eve clothes made from animal fur, which animals had to die? Or did God just make fur without the animals?” 

Their reactions make me think — why don’t we consider these things more deeply as adults? We should be outraged about the Son of God being born in squalor; we should ask what the fall meant for the animals. We too need to engage with Scripture as if it is our first time reading it, with the eyes and hearts of children, taking in every detail and asking the hard questions. 

Whether it’s desensitization after years of hearing the stories, or mere laziness, I often lack the vivacity of my children when reading Scripture. My oldest daughter cannot get enough of stories from the Bible.

The global success of Angel Studio’s The Chosen has demonstrated that audiences are hungry to see the stories of Scripture honored through excellent filmmaking. Amazon Studios has responded with an excellent offering of their own: House of David. 

House of David is a multi-season Biblical drama that depicts the unlikely rise of the young shepherd-boy David as he ascends to the throne of Israel and the correspondent demise of David’s predecessor, King Saul. The first season was released in Spring 2025 and it follows David throughout his teenage years as he journeys towards his climactic confrontation with the giant Goliath. It is a sweeping story that deftly follows a contingent of compelling characters as they journey through primitive warfare, tender romance, disconcerting prophecies and the intrigues of a kingdom that is torn between the call of God and the ambition of man. 

I found that House of David offers artistic excellence while also remaining steadfast in its recounting of Biblical truth. The show takes creative liberties, but they do so in a way that remains true to the overall truth of Scripture. This is not a secularized version of King David’s story: God is embedded and honored at the forefront of the entire show. The script manages to convey the deep, spiritual nature of the story without betraying the audience with corny sentimentality or preachy exposition. 

I was personally struck by one of the show’s central themes: the experience of receiving a calling from the Lord. God speaks intimately to many of the show’s lead characters and He calls them forth with challenging prophecies that often bewilder or surprise them. Along with the theme of calling, a theme of waiting upon the Lord runs throughout the show. David – along with other characters – clearly hears the call of God upon his life and he has the understandable urge to immediately act on what he has heard. But God is gentle and quiet in moments when thunder and action might have been expected. An anointing comes… and then a call to wait and trust. The mystery of God’s pacing weighs heavily on David. 

Multiple characters wrestle with a desire to do great things with their lives, to fulfill what they believe is the call upon their lives, to satiate a great longing within themselves, and they are met with the mutually confounding and consoling realization that their lives are not their own. Their desires and calling are of Divine origin and as such the fulfillment of desire and the realization of their calling is primarily the work of God, not the work of man. The show maintains an urgent pace while leading the audience through the tension of characters who are wrestling with their desire to move and their call to wait – and the consequences that unfold when man chooses to act in contradiction to the voice of God. 

In this episode of Way of the Heart, Jake & Brett are joined by long time friend, Peter White. Peter is a Registered Clinical Counselor that has known Jake professionally for years and watched Brett hoop during his prime basketball years. They discuss a wide variety of topics including the beauty and difficulties of marriage, how men and women respond differently to conflict, how conflict can lead to great things & the importance of good fathers. This is one of our deepest conversations yet and we hope that it speaks to your heart.

Key Points

• The beauty and difficulties of marriage.

• A discussion about how people, especially men, get married without an understanding of what it takes for a marriage to thrive.

• Trends in boy’s/men’s personal growth since the feminist movement

• Psychologically, men tend to have a fight or flight mentality. Women tend to have a tend and mend mentality. This dates back to the earliest humans. Men tend to fight alone. Women work together. 

• Conflict in marriage can be generative.

• The importance of fatherhood. Inviting our sons to something higher by letting them punch a little above their weight.

• The distorted desire to build an empire instead of serving your neighbor.

• How to drop the facade and get to more of your true self.

  References
  Peter’s Website
  Warren Farrell’s Website

Fr. Mike explains how being at home with our family is one of God’s favorite ways to make us holy—if we are honest about the areas where we need to grow in our relationships with family members. 

Fr. Mike has observed that college students often have a profound encounter with Jesus through their college’s Catholic community. They find that they are praying more, receiving the sacraments more, participating in more service opportunities, and so on. Then they get back home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or—in the most recent cases—a lockdown. They realize, in their interactions with their family that they’re not as holy as they thought they were. 

Why do we struggle to be loving toward those whom we claim to love the most? It’s harder to love family members sometimes because—Fr. Mike explains—you didn’t get to choose this group, and they can make demands on you. 

It’s easy to be generous when it’s on your own terms. Our relationships with our family can reveal the impatience and lack of generosity inside us—the unedited version of us. 

Be honest with God and admit that the things you thought you defeated are still somewhere inside you. Surrender these things to Jesus. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable with your family. They love you. Ask family members where they want you to grow this week. 

Pursue holiness at home. Like St. Teresa of Calcutta said, find your own Calcutta.

My get-up-and-go has got up and went!

Is that statement merely a joke, or a declaration of fatigue—or a sign of something worse, perhaps even deadly? In this second in a series of a renewed look at the seven deadly sins (part one is HERE), we’ll be looking at the sin with the unfortunate name of “sloth.”

“Sloth” suggests a lack of industriousness, a lack of “busy-ness.” Unfortunately, overemphasizing that aspect of this sin can mask today’s more common and deadly forms. Let’s replace “sloth” with the Greek term “acedia” meaning “lack of care.” We’ll see why in a moment.

I’ve observed students in the library, with their laptops lit up, their screens cluttered with various social media programs, some streaming videos, a game running, and maybe, just maybe, something school related. At the same time, they’ve got some form of audio stuffed into their ears. Their eyes and hands are on their phones. Somewhere nearby, there may be a textbook or school-related notebook. They’re very active, but little is getting done. They will leave the library tired, but with no sense of satisfaction, and little or nothing accomplished. They say that they’re “multi-tasking”; I say that they’re “multi-slacking.” Why do I describe such frenetic people as slackers? 

They’ve spent an enormous amount of energy doing lots of little things very briefly; they’ve scattered themselves widely even while sitting in one place; they’ve attended to little, and invested themselves in even less. They’ve accomplished nothing and worse than nothing. The most likely end result of all that time and energy spent is that they’ve further entrenched in themselves an addiction to electronic stimuli, while wasting precious resources and failing in their duties.

They view this dynamic as acceptable because they see it as inevitable—they just don’t see any other way of proceeding, and they have a lack of care—acedia—for their duties as students. This dynamic is not unique to students; workers of every kind, and even vowed religious (who should certainly know better!) cultivate this restless and fruitless way of proceeding. What’s the spiritual import of all this?

Acedia, according to Aquinas, is a kind of sadness, “a species of sadness according to the world.” I describe it as an interior sulky whining and pouting because doing the right thing (including doing one’s duty) is often hard, often quite unglamorous, and, very often, not immediately fulfilling or stimulating. Typically understood, sloth is what prompts us to hit the snooze button repeatedly, or, worse, prompts us to refuse to get out of bed at all. But the restless, fidgety “multi-slacking” I described above is also acedia according to Aquinas, because one sets one’s energy on the trivial, rather than on the more demanding (and more rewarding) spiritual goods.

The period of engagement is an exciting time for young Catholic couples. The planning of the upcoming wedding is paired with endless anticipation for how wonderful married life together will be and a slew of celebrations to bolster support for the soon-to-be-married among the broader community.

Imagine my chagrin then, when my parents insisted that my (then) fiancée and I take what was certain to be an exceedingly boring course before we got married called “Financial Peace University.”

We watched 60-minute videos about emergency funds and investments. Not exactly riveting material.

My wife to this day maintains that the course had its fair share of mind-numbing moments. Still, both of us cannot deny that taking the time to learn about budgeting and wise stewardship of our finances along Biblical lines has had an outsized impact on our marriage.

It’s not a secret that one of the more common causes of divorce is financial issues and this makes sense. How to spend money (or perhaps more commonly, what to do when there’s not enough) can easily become a topic of contentious debate. 

When my wife and I first got married, we were both working as part time baristas at Starbucks. While we both were fortunate to upgrade our careers fairly quickly, we’ve never made that much more than we need to get by. Still, the habit of keeping a monthly budget together has helped us to stay out of debt through the entirety of our married life, handle a lay-off and subsequent move across the country, and give generously to the needs of the Church and our community.

Budgeting may not come naturally to some (it certainly didn’t to either of us) but having a plan for our finances helps us to stay on the same page and feel as though we are working towards the same goals with our money. I tend to be a bit of a “free spirit” when it comes to money (in other words, without discipline money doesn’t stay in my bank account for very long), while my wife can be so thrifty that she avoids buying things she needs or really wants. 

When these attributes of ours come into conflict with each other, it creates the opportunity for us to share openly and honestly about our desires and fears around money and the life we want. Instead of seeing these conflicts as hindrances, we try to use them as an opportunity to show empathy and then to gently and lovingly encourage the other person to grow. Making and sticking to a budget has helped the both of us to not only reach a more moderate place with our finances but also to deepen our unity.

The Ten Commandments tell us to “honor thy mother and father”, but what does that really look like? Especially for adult children?

Parents are not perfect, and sometimes they make mistakes that leave us and others wounded. So when God tells us to honor them, what does he mean by that? There’s a certain respect that all are owed simply by their personhood, and then there’s a respect that someone deserves because of their role or position. But what if our parents are dishonorable people? Does this commandment change once we’re adults out of their direct care?

Today, Father Mike explains how we can love difficult parents.

For my first attempt at Eucharistic adoration, I was late.

I had signed up online for adoration at our church’s chapel. I chose a slot at 2 p.m. on a Friday. That morning, I saw a reminder on my paper desk calendar, and then promptly forgot about it. Until about 5:45. Oops. I went online and a 6 p.m. slot was still open. I raced over to church, and got there at 6:10. As I hurried across the parking lot, I realized that even though I had been a parishioner for about eight years, I had never actually been in the chapel. I wasn’t even 100 percent sure where it was. But I guessed right, and walked into the small, simple room to find several other people sitting or kneeling before the host encased in a gold monstrance on the little altar. It was a reminder that I didn’t have to be totally certain about something to be right about it in the end. It was also reassuring to know that even if I lag behind, there are other pilgrims with me on the journey.

For I was late to adoration in another sense. I had spent my first forty-some years in traditions where the Real Presence was never a major topic. The most helpful insight I heard then was that the Eucharist is a holy mystery. And this is true as far as it goes. However, about three decades ago, I entered the Catholic Church, and I began to see that we benefit from trying to understand holy mysteries, even if our progress is slow. For instance, this winter my wife and I read Bishop Robert Barron’s booklet on the Eucharist, “This Is My Body,” aloud to each other, and we learned a lot. Still, this mystery is deep enough that more than reading is required. I thought enduring an hour of adoration might help.

I dreaded it, however, because I thought sitting in silence would drive me nuts. The first thing I learned in the chapel, though, was that the silence was comfortable. I didn’t feel the need to do anything. I had brought a spiritual book to turn to if overcome by tedium, but I didn’t look at it. I felt in tune with just … being there. I suspect that, as an occasional writer, I felt relieved from the tumult of “words, words, words.”

The monstrance was lovely, yet at the same time it highlighted the host’s plainness, and thus its power. Yes, the wafer is the most ordinary thing in the world; that is precisely why it is so extraordinary. That the Almighty becomes the substance of the wafer is the pledge that he is part of everything, in some way, even if we don’t see or understand how.