November 2018

As a spiritual director, I regularly journey with people who are seeking God’s will in their lives. Young people frequently ask the question whether they are called to marriage, religious life or priesthood. Young people who are already dating ask whether this is “the one”. Young people who are drawn to religious life ask which religious community is the right one for them. These are all important questions, but they often lose sight of the more foundational question.

Of all the misunderstood Catholic teachings—and there are a few of them—purgatory is often seen as the most embarrassing. Thousands of Catholics leave the Church every year. Their faith is questioned and their religious education doesn’t rise to the challenge.

Two years ago I committed one of the more heroic acts in my life. I drove in Italy. To locate my valor more precisely, I drove through Pisa to take my family to see “The Leaning Tower Of.” Until that trip, my wife and children did not know my head could rotate so nimbly, or that a Fiat Punto could downshift from fourth to first gear at that rpm, or that the laws of physics could be flexed slightly in the cause of fitting in a parking space. Neither did I. So after ogling the sights, we rushed out of Pisa to avoid its real rush hour traffic, and retreated to our haven in Siena run by the Dominican sisters.