Author: Deacon Nick

Homily

A Friendship Like No Other: Homily for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A

One of the funniest and most famous scenes in all of literature comes near the beginning of the novel Don Quixote. Don Quixote and his faithful companion, Sancho Panza, are riding across the plains of Spain, a knight and his squire, out to right wrongs and protect the vulnerable. Suddenly Don Quixote points into the distance. “Look there!” he cries. “Monstrous giants!” Sancho squints into the sun. “Giants? Those aren’t giants. Those are windmills.” But Don Quixote is convinced. He lowers his lance, charges across the field, and...

Books and Reading

My Favorite Reads of 2025

Happy New Year! As has been my practice for over 17 years, today is the day I take to reflect on the past year of reading, list my favorite books of the year, and look forward to the year ahead. As I look back on 2025, I see a change in my reading habits due to two separate factors. First, I made the deliberate decision to move away from an annual reading goal based on number of books read, and instead began a more intentional focus on reading...

Homily

Good News, Bad News, Who Can Say? – Homily for Gaudete Sunday

Today is Gaudete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday. We light the rose colored candle. We hear words like rejoice and be glad. And yet, maybe many of us arrive here a little tired. Advent days are dark. The world is loud.
This season that’s supposed to be joyful is often when things feel the heaviest, the most stressful. Which makes today’s readings comforting. Because every one of them speaks to us right where we are. Not to people who have it all figured out, not to people whose lives are all...

Homily

Larry’s Treasure: Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C

Did you hear about the treasure buried in the Spokane area? About a month ago I was driving out in the valley and I saw a big billboard that said there was a $10,000 treasure chest buried nearby. The billboard gave a web address, and each day a clue was posted to help lead you to the treasure. You could even see a livestream of the big X on the ground where the treasure was buried. Now before you go out looking for it, the treasure has already...

Homily

An Ear to the Wood: Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent – Year C

March is a restless month. One day it feels like spring, the next, winter comes roaring back with a sudden snowstorm, like this weekend. Across the country, the weather has been wild: tornadoes, windstorms, wildfires. In many ways our world feels like a storm right now. The headlines change by the hour— inflation on the rise, financial markets dropping, people being detained, protests in the streets, arguments online. Some are afraid of what’s happening, others don’t mind so much, and still others just feel exhausted by it all....

Books and Reading

Beginning One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

“Many years later as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” This week I started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, through the Hardcore Literature Book Club with Benjamin McEvoy. This will be my first novel of magical realism and my first real foray into Latin American literature. It’s refreshing to have this new literary territory to explore. My initial plan is to simply let the novel do its...

Gandalf Guarding Books

Books and Reading

My Favorite Reads of 2024

Welcome to 2025, and a new year of reading. Before moving forward into a new year I like to reflect on last year’s books, looking for patterns, appreciating blessings, and choosing my ten favorite reads. As I look back over the books I read in the last twelve months, what stands out more than anything else is that, for me, 2024 is a testament to the value of rereading. Half of the books I read last year were rereads. And among my top ten books of 2024 are...

Books and Reading / Spirituality

My Walden Pond Cabin

I am rereading Walden by Henry David Thoreau, and this line jumped out at me today as Thoreau was describing the house he built for his time at Walden Pond: I have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long… Ten feet wide by fifteen long. 150 square feet. I got curious about how big that was, so I measured the room I am in right now, my home office/library. It measures twelve feet wide by thirteen feet long, or 156 square feet —...

Books and Reading / Chapter-a-Day Read-Along

A New Home for the Chapter-a-Day Read-Along

The Chapter-a-Day Read-Along has a new home! After seven years of hosting the read-along here at One Catholic Life, I’ve decided to give it its own home at ChapteraDayReadAlong.com so that people can find it and follow along more easily, especially considering that the 2025 Chapter-a-Day Read-Along will be announced soon. ChapteraDayReadAlong.com will be the new main hub, and you can always find the latest reading schedules and articles there. I’ve transferred all the past read-along articles from One Catholic Life to this new website, so everything is...

Homily

The Grandeur of God – Homily for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Maybe it’s just me, but this autumn seems to have been especially glorious: colorful, vivid, bright, and seemingly lasting forever. Lately the trees have lost some of their color, what with the rain and the wind, but overall it’s been a beautiful autumn. I notice it most when I am commuting back and forth to work. To get to St. John Vianney School in the Spokane Valley I usually take 29th Avenue to Carnahan, Carnahan to 8th Avenue, 8th to Park and so on. It usually takes about...

Homily

Bartimaeus and The Shawshank Redemption – Homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

You might remember the movie The Shawshank Redemption, the story of Andy Dufresne, a man unjustly imprisoned for many years. In the course of his time in prison, he gains the trust of the prison staff by helping with various tasks, like handling the finances and overseeing the prison library. One of the most powerful scenes in the movie happens when Andy finds himself unsupervised in the warden’s office. He is sitting in the warden’s office in a chair, all alone, and he notices a crate on the...