Catholic on the Edge - Happy Birthday!

Yes it's true!

Catholic on the Edge has just celebrated its first anniversary. What a year!

When I began, I had little idea where this project would take me. Or how involving it would become. I followed my nose, and I hope, the Holy Spirit, to explore topics connected to the Catholic Church that I felt curious or passionate about.

Altogether, over the past 12 months, I posted 88 times! That seems incredible to me. I don’t know if I will produce such a body of work in this second year. I don’t expect it of myself, and I hope you don’t expect it of me, either! (Tip: To see the entire content of Catholic on the Edge in one place check out the Archive.)

As I look back on my first official post on May 24, 2024, “Catholic on the Edge - what do I mean by that?” I realize that while my concerns about the Church remain, I am filled with a sense of possibility. Dare I say hope?

Perhaps it’s the election of our new Pope, Leo XIV. The surprise of his election and the confluence of unlikely circumstances that led to it could only have been engineered by the Holy Spirit. I am excited for what the new year, the first year of his papacy, will bring. You can be assured I will be paying close attention and bringing anything I find interesting and encouraging to your attention.

But before I look forward, I would like to look back on the past year. Although some of you have been here from the beginning - thank you family and friends! - many others have joined in along the way. I am grateful to all of you for your presence.

The major themes of the past year have been “The Synod on Synodality,” “Meditations and Prayers” - including an Advent 2024 series and a Lent 2025 Series, plus a few “On My Mind . . .” general posts.

“Synod on Synodality” Born out of my frustration that I had not been able to participate in this important process in my local parish, and my intense curiosity about it, I researched and wrote 50 posts on synodality. Synodality was very dear to Pope Francis' heart. I believe he felt it was/is key to a very necessary reform of the Catholic Church - uniting lay people and clergy, women and men, young and old - in reimagining and revitalizing our Faith. What Pope Leo will do with synodality is yet to be determined, although I am hopeful. Already in his first two weeks, he has mentioned synodality several times. I will continue to pay attention to this key topic in the coming year.

“Meditations and Prayers” These 28 posts include prayers and meditations I have written: Jesus’s Morning Prayer, Jesus’s Evening Prayer, an Advent 2024 Series, and a Lent 2025 Series.

Finally, the posts included in the category “On my mind . . .” offers 10 posts on various topics – “Cafeteria Catholics?” “The Struggle Between Truth and Love,” and “Thinking about women deacons . . .” Typically, I wrote these posts when I felt I had to get something off my chest. And most recently, I have added posts on Pope Francis’s passing and the election of Pope Leo.

I hope everything I have written to date meets the test of time. I look forward to “Catholic on the Edge” becoming more interactive. Be that as it may, I encourage you to share this Substack with friends. If you are just an occasional reader, I encourage you to subscribe. It’s free and will remain so, but subscribing will let you know when something new is posted.

What will the new year bring? I’m back in my prayer chair, interrogating the Holy Spirit about that. My prayer life both sustains me and challenges me. I expect that to continue in the second year of Catholic on the Edge. Already, new ideas and inspiration have got me thinking, researching and writing.