Author Archives: kmwanek

In today’s (1/13) Gospel, we read about Jesus calling Simon, Andrew, James, and John.  As I read the passage, one thing I reflected on is that there were no conditions attached to Jesus’ invitation to them to follow Him.  He called and they answered by leaving  behind what they were doing and following Him.  WeContinue reading “Following in All Circumstances”

Whenever I leave mass, I typically don’t remember any of the petitions that were prayed during the mass.  However, at mass on Christmas day, there was one that I have not only remembered, but that I’ve been thinking about regularly for the past two weeks.  During the mass, one of the petitions was that weContinue reading “Courageous Witness”

In one of the documents of Vatican II, there is a line that says, “When God is forgotten, however, the creature itself grows unintelligible” (Gaudium et Spes 36).  This is something that we can see so clearly in our world.  We live in a society that has largely forgotten God, a society that has overwhelminglyContinue reading “An Unintelligible Society”

In college on a spring break trip with the Catholic campus ministry group, there was a prayer from Thomas Merton that we prayed every day of the trip.  It had been my first time hearing this prayer before and there was one line that stood out.  The line “the fact that I think that IContinue reading “The Will of God”

A few weeks ago, when I went to confession, as I approached the priest sitting in the back of the church, he said, “it is good to see you again.”  In that moment, it was as if Jesus Himself was saying this.  Anytime we approach Jesus in the sacrament of reconciliation, it is a goodContinue reading “Good to See You Again”

There’s a saying out there along the lines of, “what if you woke up only with the things you thanked God for yesterday?”  If this were the case, I think a lot of us would wake up without a lot of what we currently have.  We are blessed, but how often do we forget thisContinue reading “We are Blessed”

In today’s (11/18) Gospel, we read the story of Jesus healing the blind man in Jericho.  Though it is a familiar story, reading it this morning, I was struck by this line, “He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God.  When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God”Continue reading “Giving Glory to God”

A while back, I had a thought that I should create a separate Facebook page to share my blog posts to.  I thought that I would just invite the people who regularly read my blog to “like” the page so that the posts wouldn’t be shared on the newsfeed to people who don’t read them. Continue reading “Something that Can’t be Separated”

In the Catholic Church, November is dedicated to the Souls in Purgatory.  Besides taking extra time to pray for those who have died, it is a good time to reflect on and think about death in general.  When it comes to people dying, many people tend to share things that are just not true.  SeveralContinue reading “When we Die”

This past weekend I worked a TEC retreat.  Going into the weekend, it felt like a scramble to finish preparing in the days leading up to Thursday and to take care of things that I wanted to get done before being gone for the weekend.  I also knew it would be a long weekend withContinue reading “Doing Everything we Can”