January Prayer 2026

What can restore a sense of right and wrong to American life? Go to church. When almost everybody went each Sunday, most relationships were in right order. Pew found many Catholics no longer believe in the real presence. Stop blaming, and keep it simple.

Read issue

February 2026

We are made for love, labor, and leisure. A farmer of Ars looks at the good God in the tabernacle, and He looks down — centering prayer without words. Happy Valentine’s: the saint who married couples when marriage was outlawed. Use prayer, Scripture, worship — or lose them.

Read issue

March 2026

The Velcro/Teflon mind: gratitude slides away; we prefer problems to solutions. Each day some seventy thousand thoughts, ninety percent negative. Religion’s work is to recover the divine image in everything. What you whisper to yourself has the greatest power.

Read issue

April 2026

A Nation at Risk, 1983: mediocre schools would have been an act of war, and families matter more than money. Sincere once meant sine cera — without wax. A pianist in Warsaw signs himself with the cross before Chopin. Spiritual warfare is not a metaphor.

Read issue

May 2026

Priest, husband, father — any one of these vocations makes him better at the other two. Revenge satisfies a day; forgiveness, a lifetime. Christological amnesia: easy to give out bread, hard to pray. The womb is the most dangerous place to live.

Read issue

June 2026

There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God. Those who believe in the Eucharist never leave. Write hurts in sand, kindness on stone. Transformed people transform people; the un-transformed are just busy.

Read issue

July 2026

Main-character syndrome: everything revolves around me. Chesterton to the Times: what’s wrong with the world? I am. Marriage and family are a simple solution to a complex problem. Washington: religion and morality are indispensable supports. America turns 250; the pre-born still wait for life.

Read issue

August 2026

Conversion is not a single act; we are always being converted. The dream you — Alexander — does not exist; centering prayer keeps the real you honest. “When I grow up, I want to be kind.” Dorothy Day: there was no difference between what she believed and how she acted. Become a living flame.

Read issue

September 2026

We never grow beyond the need for God, church, and prayer. Why go to church on Sunday? Because God doesn’t like to eat alone. Spiritual warfare is real, and we remain free to choose the good.

Read issue