Even though permitted with a dispensation, I super-highly recommend Catholics do NOT marry non-Catholics. A spouse should be a helper and sharer, not an obstacle, in the Faith. And kids learn from both parents. There is loneliness in a one-Catholic household. Unnecessary pain.

Had you told me in my late 20s that there would come a time when I would pray the rosary daily, I would have been mortified: Vain repetitions. Pagan goddess worship. Idolatry. Apostasy. Catholic apologetics won me over. Yet that wasn't good enough: Thou shalt not live by apologetics alone. Only when I began praying the rosary regularly, thoughtfully, intentionally -- the way it should be prayed -- did I make more spiritual progress. Catholic apologetics opened up my intellect; the rosary opened up my heart. All this is my path to doing what our Lord commanded: "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30).

Watching the WNBA All-Star game is painful. It feels like doing penance for my sins. Too many 5-foot air balls. No defense. No rebounds. Just entitled lesbians taking turns throwing up 3-point shots. I would rather work on a book report for the Machinery's Handbook.

Step away from the phone and pray the rosary. 📿

"They say" that Mary can't hear everyone's prayers at once because only God is omniscient, able to attend to all people at the same time. Two things to consider: (1) You don't have to be omniscient or omnipotent to hear everyone's prayers at once. Even if every human being alive speaks to her at once, that's still only a few billion, which is very different from infinity. That's hyper-multitasking, not omniscience. (Women are better at that kind of stuff anyway.) (2) God is the one who empowers us to do things that are above our natural capabilities. For instance, in the Old Testament, Joseph was able to not only interpret dreams, but to reveal what the dreams were in the first place. That didn't make him omniscient. It meant he was the recipient of special graces from God to do what he couldn't ordinarily do. The same goes for the mother of Jesus, Mary, who is "full of grace." We might also ask, "How can people in heaven live forever when only God has immortality?' It's all grace. Thanks be to God.

The words of our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego are very reassuring, encouraging, and comforting to people throughout all ages: ----- My son, I love you. I desire you to know who I am. I am the ever-Virgin Mary; mother of the true God... I am your merciful Mother, the Mother of all who love me, of those who cry to me, of those who have confidence in me. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anguish or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need? ----- Holy Mother, our Queen, pray with us and for us, now and at the hour of our death, and lead us to the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Same religion?

Not trying to be controversial, but honest: If you compare the traditional Catholic Mass with a typical non-denominational church, then they appear to be two different religions, because there are radical differences.

Practically all of Christian denominationalism -- whether mainstream Protestants or the non-denominational denominations -- agree with Catholics on *what* the New Testament says. The problem is their disagreements about what the New Testament *means* on critical issues, as well as what those critical issues even are. "Bible alone" (sola scriptura) manifestly just doesn't work. We have to obey St. Paul's instructions to keep the traditions passed on by word of mouth or by letter (2 Thess. 2:15) -- which is to say, not by letter alone.

When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed God's will be done, and asked his disciples to pray they don't enter into temptation. Today (and over the past few decades, and actually in various ways almost over the last two millennia) the Church -- the Body of Christ -- is going through a Passion, too. *We also should pray for God's will to be done, and that we don't enter into temptation.* I keep coming back to this: *We have to make the rosary part of our daily lives.* It's the perfect "pray without ceasing" kind of prayer. I've been making great use of my ring rosary. I wish I had known the power of the rosary from childhood -- instead of being ignorantly anti-Catholic and anti-BVM. But...I was ignorant. God enlightens us in his time. --- Jesus, I trust in you. Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us.

I very much dislike ads that show smiling people with Band-Aids on their arms. I would rather send these folks pictures of my smiling healthy family *without* Band-Aids.

I bought a new modem and router over the weekend. We can see all the neighbors' WiFi signals, so I thought it would be appropriate to name ours: PrayTheRosary! As Christians, we should be taking up space in society -- might as well take up the electromagnetic spectrum, too.

If you like David Allen's "Getting Things Done" (GTD) system of personal productivity, I recommend checking out mindwtr.app It makes the system easy. It's FOSS and available on all platforms. Also, your info is private stays on your device, though you can sync it if you wish (I sync between GrapheneOS and Linux using Nextcloud/WebDAV).

It's bizarre how some of my nondenominational Christian friends love to talk about how everything comes down to "what Jesus did on the Cross for us" -- but they feel an aversion to seeing a crucifix (a visual representation of Jesus' body on the Cross), because Jesus is no longer dead and hanging from a cross, because is risen! And so they prefer an empty cross in their Christian symbolism. Also, they're fine with displaying a crèche scene at Christmastime, portraying Jesus as a baby in a manger. But one could say, "Jesus is not a helpless baby in a manger -- he is in heaven, seated at the right hand of God in power and glory!" Then, if they see a statue of the glorified risen Jesus, some will claim the statue is an idol! There are sound explanations to offer these people in response to their sincere, good-intentioned objections, but there does come a point when one is tempted to say: "Come on, dude. Get real. Sober up. Don't be a hard-headed, obstinate goofball." And then I remember: I was that obstinate person before -- oftentimes worse -- and I was shown patience and mercy.

We should not think of prayer as merely a checklist of requests, asking favors of God. It is primarily a means to draw closer to God. And so our best personal method of daily prayer is the most holy rosary.

God makes the best seasonal dessert for us that hits the spot -- and doesn't turn us into type 2 diabetics. It's pretty awesome to pick this many strawberries each day from a small patch in our back yard. They are better than anything one could buy at the store.

One of the obvious reasons to pray the daily rosary is that it ensures you intentionally meditate on the gospel for at least 15 minutes every day -- the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord.

I remember 1995 when the two most exciting sounds on a computer were "You got mail!" and the creaking door-hinge sound when a friend from your "Buddy List" logged on. Within a few years I graduated to Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger. But no one had cooler sound effects than AOL. Although ICQ's "uh-oh!" was pretty iconic. Just reminiscing. The internet used to be fun and free, with everyone having homepages. Now it's a tool of Big Brother, yet so few are willing to use freedom and privacy tech to bring back some of the joy. Because normies are gonna norm no matter what.

You're a behind-the-times normie if you check your old AOL email daily on webmail after all these years. But you are cool retro if you use AOL email (along with others) on Thunderbird with PGP encryption.

I choked on my omelet this morning. That was an eggs-aspirating experience.