by Claire Dwyer | Apr 25, 2024 | Discernment, Everyday Holiness, Present Moment, The Sacred Everyday
My friend and I were supposed to be strategizing, but we found ourselves commiserating. Working wives and moms of many, we had, in the past, diligently organized our little blocks of time. On paper, everything lined up in tiny, tidy squares. A time for this, a time...
by Claire Dwyer | Dec 2, 2023 | Advent, Liturgical year, Present Moment
The baby’s wail rang through the church, reverberating through the air, an audible avalanche. It shattered the silence after communion with such piercing power I was momentarily stunned. The mother had already retreated to the back of the building—no doubt...
by Claire Dwyer | May 21, 2023 | Holy Spirit, Liturgical year, Present Moment
If there’s one virtue I struggle with, it would be hope. In part because of my melancholic nature, my inner pendulum swings more toward pessimism. I see the difficulties before they arise, sigh with the weight of anticipated woes, expect disappointment around every...
by Claire Dwyer | Jan 2, 2021 | Everyday Holiness, Present Moment
For the longest time, it looked like absolutely nothing was happening. When St. Joseph’s Catholic Church tragically burned down over a year ago, the land was cleared and left to wait. Every so often, I’d drive by, the empty space on the parish grounds signaling a...
by Claire Dwyer | Nov 27, 2020 | Discernment, Present Moment, silence
Problems in the Parlor She was a young nun who loved the Lord and spoke of Him passionately and often, edifying others who saw in her the beginnings of the saint she would become. But St. Teresa of Avila admits early in her biography that she had a major fault: she...
by Claire Dwyer | Oct 24, 2020 | Present Moment, scripture
The desert sun burned her face, the hot sand tore at her tired feet. She staggered toward Egypt, hurt and angry, and, let’s face it, not altogether innocent. And she had probably never felt more alone. In that moment of quiet desperation, God found her. Her name was...
