Regrets also possess a positive side, they humble us, teaching us that we are not the strong person we desire to be. They are reminders of how easy it is to commit undesirable acts that cause us to weep.

I expected fatherhood to change the routines of my life. Everyone told me it would. Goodbye, sleep. Hello, collapsing in exhaustion at 8 p.m. What I did not suppose was the way fatherhood would be an occasion for conversion.

Here are seven places you might delight to encounter God with your family this summer.

Brood X is to the normal summer cicada what King Kong is to Tarzan’s Cheeta: something else entirely.

Dad’s role as catechist was one he passed over for much of his life. But his final sacramental journey was one of the greatest educations I have ever received in Catholicism.

As Catholics, we know that the family is the basic building block of society, the “domestic church,” where children find love, stability, and are nurtured to grow to their full potential.

Detachment is imperative to becoming our essential self. Its reward is joy that emanates from responding to God’s loving generosity planted in us.

Our dignity comes from the fact that God has created us and we have a soul that is cherished by him. The fact that young people seek YouTube stardom so passionately should be a wake-up call to the church.

His life was enriched by a community that chose him, not the other way around. It took an investment of time — well more than a decade — to reap the benefits.

If we allow the graces of the cross to take away all in our lives that is not of God, we will eventually be ready to celebrate the perpetual Easter of heaven, in which we will sing “Holy, holy, holy,” and “Glory to God in the highest,” and “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia,” without end, rejoicing with all the angels and saints in God’s presence forever.