Joseph M Tuttle

God is the supreme Storyteller and every time we create a story, we participate in the larger Story He created. On occasion even non-Christian authors can tap into that reality whenever they communicate a narrative that points to what is true, good, and beautiful.
This book presents a variety of essays on ...

The declaration of Candidacy is a major step forward in a man's journey to the priesthood. For many, this is the time when they will begin to wear clerical attire. It also means that they are now an official candidate for ordination and can be ordained any time after that, though they will, in normal circumstances, complete their seminary formation and then be ordained. (Canons 1008-1054 speak more in depth about this.) This declaration is not something superficial but something deeply spirit...

Our Blessed Lord warned His disciples about those who would cause scandal in His Church: “And he said to his disciples: It is impossible that scandals should not come: but woe to him through whom they come. It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones.” (Luke 17:1-2)[1] The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines scandal in more detail: “Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads ano...

One of my favorite trips over the summer was to a rather obscure chapel on the campus of Marquette University in Wisconsin. I had been told there was a chapel there that St. Joan of Arc had visited. My curiosity was piqued given that Joan lived in France and the chapel was in the US.

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend Holy Week this year in Seville, Spain. While there, I made a day trip to Granada, specifically, the Alhambra – the last Muslim fortress taken by Queen Isabella in 1492. It was here that she met with Christopher Columbus and agreed to fund his voyage to the Indies – and we all know how that ended. I discovered that an American author, Washington Irving, had spent a good deal of time there and wrote a book called Tales of the Alhambra, which I purchased and read.

Every time I see that the Holy Father is going to canonize people, I usually check to see if their names are Italian. Most of them seem to be. The Italians should be proud that they have such a long list of venerable saints. Very rarely is an American ever thrown into the mix. Just because someone is not canonized, however, doesn’t mean they didn’t live a holy life. Nor does it mean we can’t learn anything from them.

In his wonderful book on the Holy Spirit, The Sanctifier, Archbishop Luis Martinez notes that there are two sanctifiers of souls. 1) the Holy Spirit, Who is the essence of Holiness and 2) Mary, His spouse, who is the Mediatrix of all the graces He wishes to bestow upon us. The purpose of sanctification is ultimately to transformed into Jesus Christ, in a particular way.
The Apostle's creed reads “I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only...

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, compiled and edited by Fr. Dave Tomaszycki, On the Demonic, Emmaus Road Publishing, 2024.
In his book Those Mysterious Priests published in 1974, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen desired to write an entire book on the Demonic. It was a theme he frequently dealt with, though often not in great detail in one sitting. Fr. Dave Tomaszycki set out to find this long lost manuscript only to discover that the Archbishop did not have one. Sheen died before such a book was publish...

The existence, aid, and veneration of angels is a key dogma of the Catholic Church. She teaches that angels exist and that every person has a guardian angel that watches over them and aids them in their path to salvation. The Liturgy teaches about their existence and ways in which man interacts with them. It is the purpose of this essay to examine how the angels act in the Liturgy by looking at what the Liturgy itself says and teaches about them.

Michael,
His sword is sharp,
His armor thick,
He does not play a flute or harp,
His spear a deadly stick.

Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to travel around the Midwest and visit some of the up-and-coming saints of the United States of America. Unfortunately, there seem to be few native born American saints and those who are native born, like Fulton Sheen, are sitting in limbo for no good reason.
I recently discovered that there was another “Servant of God” in central Illinois, aside from Venerable Fr. Augustus Tolton and Venerable Fulton J. Sheen. His name is Brother Simon Van Ackeren, O...

The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, issued from the Second Vatican Council, emphasized the point that every person has a vocation to holiness. The word “vocation” stems from the Latin word vocare which means “to call.” Within each person’s call to holiness is a particular vocation such as the priesthood, marriage, and religious life.