Category: Behold Vancouver

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.

Why does life feel empty — even when everything seems “fine”?

Fr. Mike Schmitz and Dr. Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor and bestselling author, unpack the real reason so many of us feel restless, anxious, and unfulfilled.

Drawing from both science and the Catholic faith, they explore:

🔸why pleasure isn’t the same as happiness
🔸the “arrival fallacy” and why success doesn’t satisfy
🔸how modern life trains us to avoid waiting
🔸what it actually means to find lasting joy

Try not to rush through your prayer or meditation and you will notice an amazing difference.

In our fast-paced society, it is easy to rush through our daily prayers and meditation. We say we are “too busy” to spend much time on our spiritual lives, and so we simply try to check it off our list and get it done as fast as we can.

Many of us have grown accustomed to things being “fast,” such as “fast food,” or delivery services that only take a few hours to reach us. Everything around us screams, FAST!

Taking it slow

However, praying too quickly can be harmful, as we end up not knowing what we are saying and not really having any meaning behind it. In other words, it becomes the “babble” that Jesus condemns when teaching his disciples how to pray (see Matthew 6:7).

The key to more thoughtful and meaningful prayer is to take it slow and allot enough time to interiorize our actions.

Fr. Francis Xavier Lasance writes in My Prayer Book, “It is also useful, in using the prayers of our prayerbook, to read them slowly and deliberately, making in the meantime practical reflections on their contents, or pausing from time to time to meditate a little and apply the words of the prayers to our own wants.”

We must not be concerned about “finishing” our prayers as much as praying with heartfelt devotion.

As the Psalmist writes, “My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn” (Psalm 51:9).

Similarly, 19th-century writer John Sergieff wrote, “Pray slowly till an echo comes back into your heart from every word of your prayers. Yes. It is an absolute rule. Pray slowly, and with power on every word. Pronounce each successive word from the heart. Keep to the rule that it is better to say five words from the bottom of your heart, than ten thousand words from your tongue only.”

It won’t take long for you to experience the benefits of this practice. After overcoming any impatience you might have, you will look forward to prayer and appreciate the time you have in slow, deliberate meditation.

The next time you pray or meditate, do so slowly, focusing on what you are doing and offering it to God. Peace will reign in your heart and you will have a “mini-retreat” each day from the busyness of the world.

Faith and spirituality are on the decline—but what does that mean for our happiness and sense of meaning? 

In this episode of Office Hours, I approach that question not as a theologian, but as a social scientist. I explore a fundamental truth: human beings are wired to seek meaning beyond themselves. The problem today is that we’re missing out on this essential part of human life.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” – John 15:5 

When it comes to raising children, how do we help them remain in Christ? 

Debbie Herbeck shares the non-negotiables that shaped her family life and how that positively impacted her kids. If we want our children to bear lasting fruit, they must stay connected to the Vine. And that connection begins in the family.