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When it comes down to it, happiness and holiness are about acting from love of God and neighbor, not from fear of suffering and failure. By having children, you become that much more like the God of love who took the risk of creating you in his love, and then giving you the freedom to return his love or not. To be happy, you have to take risks. But know that God is with you along the whole journey.Here is my last word: the best advice I can give you on keeping your kids Catholic or helping …

We tend to think of the relationship between a parent and a child as fundamentally a biological reality, a consequence of the way animals propagate life. But since the revelation of Jesus Christ, the revelation that God is a Father who from all eternity has begotten a Son, we now know that in God’s plan the relationship between a parent and a child is fundamentally a theological reality. That is, God’s fundamental purpose in creating the world so that there would be parents and children in it wa …

A flourishing Christian family does not have to be one with no trials or serious difficulties. In fact, many trials—such as financial failure, personal tragedies, accidents, sickness, physical or mental disabilities, and so on—are not only compatible with a flourishing Christian family, they often cause the supernatural character of a flourishing Christian family to shine forth. Certain Christian virtues simply cannot grow to perfection without being tested through trials and obstacles. Even the …

The identification of four temperaments—choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic—goes back to ancient sources such as Hippocrates and Galen and was taken up again and developed in the Middle Ages. The enduring character of this doctrine reveals that it has struck on something perennially rooted in human nature. Most people have a predominant temperament (even if they have a secondary temperament and indeed some elements of all four) that has a predominant emotion associated with it as wel …

When my father was a Chemistry major at Notre Dame in the mid-1950s, he was required (as were all Notre Dame students) to take the core religion courses. Catholic priests with advanced degrees taught him that the main thing someone had to do to be a faithful Catholic was to take care of the poor (a teaching he took completely to heart, much to his credit). They also taught him that there was no devil and no hell. (God loves everyone too much for that kind of thing.) According to those priests, f …