Contributing Writers

by Diana Windley | Cockroaches were around even before the dinosaurs, a fact that saddens the most optimistic among us. “How can we ever beat such an adaptable pest?”

by Susan Miranda | As a homeschooling mother, I start asking myself the tough questions and critiquing my homeschooling performance:

by Mary Alice Teti | It’s officially summer in my homeschool! When the children were very young, the school day routine of reading aloud, math games and family prayer could continue year round

by Christine Smitha | Here are some tips and ideas for anyone needing a little inspiration in the ‘thanking Dad’ department.

by Christine Smitha | Out there, Dads seem to have acquired rather a poor reputation. They’re inadequate, bumbling, and terribly prone to mistakes.

by Kate Moriarty | Writing a blog is an excellent way to develop your creative and literary skills. Keeping a blog seems especially well suited to the homeschooling curriculum. A blog is like an online journal (the word “blog” is a contraction of “web-log”).

by Kerry Costanzo | It seems that the time has come. After nine years, our little house must be tired. Tired and busting at the seams. Its walls scream out in pain from being hit one too many times with soccer balls.

by Liz Beller | The past few months have put a little strain on our wallets… due to that finally, a year and a half after our wedding, my husband and I are beginning to budget. I know, we probably should have started sooner, but getting over the initial hurdles of settling into an apartment, figuring out monthly bills, oh yeah, and having a baby, pushed budgeting to the back burner.

by Ken Clark | Back in the golden age of Hollywood, major studios made religious movies that actually praised God and religion. Charleton Heston alone seems to have played most of the Apostles and Prophets. Who can forget his roles as Moses in The Ten Commandments or John the Baptist in The Greatest Story Ever Told, two excellent religious movies.

As a homeschooling Mom and a Theology student at Franciscan University of Steubenville, learning new theology lessons is a daily occurence. What is amazing to me is that it is ...

by Alannah Smithee | I have to go to the dentist. Normally, not a big deal. At least, it isn't when you haven't been stalling. But I have, for quite awhile now, in fact. And I have lain in bed many a long night worrying about it because I just didn't have it in me to call and schedule a date to be tortured.

by Sarah Rose | The month of March is dedicated to Saint Joseph. Chosen by God to be the foster-father of Jesus, Saint Joseph is perhaps the greatest saint, the one person, after Mary, closest to the Heart of Jesus.

from a Homeschooling Mother | The reason I began to homeschool is not a single reason. I was disheartened at the level of education my eldest son was receiving in the public school. In addition, we were staunch fighters against the so-called “family education,” which was nothing more than a cover and masthead for sex education.

by Fr. Robert Skeris | The Gospel of the eight Beatitudes is surely one of the best-loved passages in all of Holy Writ, and deservedly so. For the fact is that men of all climes and times have regarded the Beatitudes as the ladder, so to speak, or the staircase by which the saints ascend to Heaven.

by Liz Beller | As a new stay-at-home mom, I’ve been going through a lot of adjusting. Since when did staying at home all day leave me with less time than I had before?

by Jennifer Tutwiler | These days, the measure of good parenting seems to be how care-free and enjoyable an existence we have enabled for our children. Children are expected to play with their toys, play outside, play with their friends, play sports, play with video games... and yet today’s children are some of the most behaviorally challenged in human history.

by Kerry Costanzo | I love the poem, "The Beautiful Hands of a Priest," and I began thinking the other day about how one could write a similar reflection on the hands of mothers. While a mother’s hands do not share the dignity of those of a priest, they nevertheless have their own special value.

One of the ends of marriage is the procreation and education of children. Procreation has gotten a good deal of attention in the recent history of the Church, but education is often of less interest.

by Kerry Costanzo | Let's face it. In this kids-eat-your-treats-and-break-your-things world, it's every mom for herself. How many of you moms out there have faced this scenario: It's 11 PM at the end of another homeschooling day.

by CCC | It seemed like an ordinary lunch hour for a Legal Clerk in her mid-twenties, even working for a Supreme Court Justice. Yet the normal lunchtime banter with her Boss somehow took a turn for the extraordinary. Soon, they were engaged in a discussion on the Catholic Dogma of Mary as the Immaculate Conception.