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We are rapidly saying farewell to the last generation in America that can remember what it was like to have musicians playing live, every weekend at a dance hall within walking distance or a short drive; or what it was like to be young, in love, doing all the fun things that your schoolmates were doing, plenty of them involving a lot of physical delight, but not requiring that you take off a stitch of clothing.

I would argue that the proper response is counter-intuitive: become more explicitly “religious,” not less. Make Catholicism a clear alternative to the culture, not just another option among many. When religions try to ape the culture, they always lose, because the culture can always do it better. But the culture can’t do religion better. In fact, no one can do religion better than the one true religion, Catholicism. So instead of trying to be “relevant” and culturally hip, go the other direction. Zig when everyone else is zagging.

1. I wish to speak to you about the most important and central teaching of our faith. What I share is “not too high for you.” It is not theology that is only meant for theologians and priests. This concerns the most important reality of our lives – the saving presence of our Lord. This is not a teaching that can be dumbed down or over simplified. This is a truth that we need to be clear and certain about. Be bold, then! Take up and read, drink in the truth, discuss and share it with others and allow Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist, to conform you further to Himself and fulfill the deepest longings of your heart.

We spend 40 days preparing for Easter. We choose something to fast from; we put thought and effort into our prayer lives; we look for ways to give back to others in need. Then Easter arrives, and so many of us, myself included, are content to celebrate for the day and then go right back to our regular life, as though we have returned to Ordinary Time on Monday. But like Lent, Easter is a season. And the Church, in her wisdom, has more for us. More joy, more feasting, more life. Fifty days of it to be precise. Eastertide, or the Easter season, lasts from Easter itself until the feast of Pentecost. So how can we, as Catholic families, experience Easter as a season instead of just a single day? Here are a few ideas from my own family.

With Semitic hyperbole, Jesus says: “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Lk. 17:6) Our God-given faith, purified of error, is our most potent spiritual faculty. Fortified with God’s grace, it overcomes every obstacle to salvation. So, avoid spiritual poison. Confront faith difficulties. Hold fast to orthodox doctrinal definitions and external observances. Be attentive to liturgical seasons. A lifetime of disciplined practice makes perfect. Christ is risen in the flesh! Glorious Easter greetings.

A church which parades as Spiritual but not Religious ignores the offer of transformation. ‘The problem with the consumerist mentality is that it sticks with the desires you’ve got,’ Rowan Williams tells me. So the danger is you miss the possibility of being changed by what you find. ‘The church can go along with the market mentality and make people feel it’s meeting their needs. Or it can say, “Something utterly extraordinary has taken hold of us. Come and see”.’

Standing in the foreground of the entire gloomy nature of Good Friday is the remedy. The woman who anoints Jesus’ head with oil in Bethany is the overlooked answer (Mark 14:3-9). This scene takes place directly before Judas’ betrayal and serves as the opposite response to most of the flawed characters who surround the Lord’s death. Her example serves as the true vaccine for a world that too often looks at the masked other as a threat and views the opposing political operatives as sub-human.

Ivan Karamazov in Dostoyevsky’s famous novel “The Brothers Karamazov” asks the fatal question: “Tell me straight out, I call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears—would you agree to be the architect on such conditions?“

Catholics in the United States – and here I mean both the clergy and the laity – too often demonstrate a complacency of mind more characteristic of an establishment church than a distinctive minority. This includes, by the way, a certain insecurity about “losing a culture” that was never really ours to begin with.

When Judeo-Christian principles are abandoned, evil eventually ensues. One doesn’t have to be a believer to acknowledge this. Many secular conservatives recognize that the end of religion in the West leads to moral chaos — which is exactly what we are witnessing today and exactly what we witnessed in Europe last century. When Christianity died in Europe, we got communism, fascism and Nazism. What will we get in America if Christianity and Judeo-Christian values die?

This is why I can’t drive by the homeless without thinking of their mothers. And I wish I had something really powerful to close this with. Some sort of theological statement that knocks your socks off. But honestly? All that I have today is a mother’s heart. A heart that is so grateful for the Veronicas in my own children’s lives. The Veronicas in all of our lives. The unrecorded moments and wordless acts of charity that step into our loved ones' paths as they walk toward their own Calvary, helping them along the way when we cannot.

The shocking lack of conscience on display in America is producing behaviors that can largely be grouped into one of two categories. First, historic levels of suicide, opioid use, and overdoses, as well as epidemic levels of loneliness and isolation (especially among the most vulnerable) are together known as “deaths from despair.” Second, the various and consistent acts of mass violence, such as shootings and rioting, are among those things that could be labeled “acts of desperation.”

“The family” John Paul II wrote nearly 30 years ago, “has always been considered as the first and basic expression of man’s social nature . . . A truly sovereign and spiritually vigorous nation is always made up of strong families who are aware of their vocation and mission in history.” It’s precisely because the ties of blood, and kinship, and family bind so tightly that humans will live, and work, and when needed die, to have their families flourish. This explains why “the history of mankind, the history of salvation, passes by way of the family.”

When Pope Paul VI issued his prophetic encyclical, Humane Vitae, he did nothing more than affirm eternal Church teachings. This was not to the liking of many progressive prelates who believed the Church should get with the times and support contraception. Many influential priests and theologians, conspicuously Father Curran of Catholic University, defied the Church and Pope, and began a reign of schismatic destruction that resulted in a generation of cafeteria Catholics, legalized abortion, skyrocketing divorce and cohabitation, single mothers, gay "marriage" and a more societal ills. These were all foreseen by the pontiff as what would result from surrendering to modernity. We are at a similar juncture today as priests, Bishops and lost theologians are already openly defying the Pope Francis' affirmation of eternal Church teachings on same sex unions. God help us.

Many priests and prelates are morally obtuse because of vital immanence. Because there is no fear of God, there is no wisdom. Those who have, in their pride, abandoned the teaching of the Magisterium have abandoned the wisdom that the Magisterium provides, and they are left with a bankrupt moral theology. In contrast, “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way” (Psalms 25:9).

From Twitter: "There are 2 opinion polls in the New Testament: "Who do the people say that the Son of Man is?" (e.g., Matthew 16:13) and "Which one do you want me to release to you, Barabbas, or Jesus called Messiah?” (e.g., Matthew 27:17). The mob got it wrong both times."

In other words, while not every sin may be expressly inevitable, each is possible. We are capable of it. To think otherwise is to sound an awfully lot like Peter, “Lord, I would never deny you.” Every fallen human being is at least capable of many evils, even the unthinkable ones.

What the Church asks of Catholics with same sex-attraction may be unambiguous and simple chastity – but that does not make it easy. God offers mercy to all, but His offer of mercy does not spare us difficult choices. In a sense, God’s greatest mercy is that choice: he offers us a way out, narrow though it may be, rather than leaving us as we are. And though He looks at us and loves us, as he did the rich man, he leaves it to us to accept the offer. Or not.

Anywhere from 50-75% of Catholics have lost their way. How do we bring them home? "To the extent that this is true, it’s because we Catholics know only too well that a whole lot of people who call themselves “Catholic” have very little knowledge of the faith and put very little of what they do know into use. They favor “a woman’s right to choose” and abortion, and they disfavor getting up on a Sunday morning and going to Mass. You could say they’re “out of practice,” the way I am with French and the drums, which were old passions allowed to cool."

Shame is a negative feeling, so we don’t apply standards on people in an attempt to avoid causing them pain. But what about the real pain of a fatherless child or of an overweight patient struggling to breath due to COVID-19? They need to be told the truth in love, if not directly then at least by maintaining standards based in truth which people are aware of and hold in common.