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I've been meditating on charity in Divine Intimacy, and meditation #269, "Charity Adapts Itself to Everyone," stopped me in my tracks. 

We're supposed to adapt ourselves to other people. We're supposed to love our neighbor. We're supposed to put aside our own preferences for the good of others. 

But what happens when you've spent much of your life adapting yourself to people because you're afraid of how they'll react to you? 

That's the question I'm wrestling with in this episode. 

There's a difference between adapting yourself out of love and adapting yourself out of fear. One can be charity. The other can become people-pleasing and self-abandonment. 

I talk about the fear of speaking up at work, expressing an unpopular opinion, being yourself around family and friends, and the enormous amount of life we can waste wondering what other people will think of us. 

I also turn the question inward: Do we treat ourselves with the same charity we are supposed to show our neighbors? 

I don't have this figured out. I'm working through it myself. 

But I'm beginning to believe that loving our neighbor doesn't mean becoming nobody. We can accommodate others without erasing ourselves. We can disagree without being uncharitable. We can make mistakes and disappoint people without assuming we've done something wrong. 

God created each of us as a unique person. Perhaps part of loving our neighbor is learning to become the person God created us to be. 

Charity adapts itself to everyone. But charity doesn't require us to disappear.

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Have you ever felt like you have spent your entire life trying to earn love?

Many of us learn early that acceptance seems conditional. We become performers: trying to say the right things, do the right things, avoid mistakes, and keep everyone around us happy. We spend years believing that if we can just become better, more successful, more useful, or more pleasing, then we will finally be loved.

But what happens when we bring that same mindset into our relationship with God?

In this episode of Crappy Catholic, I explore the exhausting burden of trying to earn what cannot be earned: God’s love and grace. I reflect on the struggle of learning to love ourselves as Christ commands, especially when our past experiences have taught us that love must always come with conditions.

The truth of our Catholic faith is simple, yet incredibly difficult to accept: God loves us because He created us, not because we have performed well enough to deserve it. His love is not a reward for perfection. It is a gift freely given.

But for those of us who have spent a lifetime trying to prove our worth, accepting that love can feel frightening. Trusting God, surrendering our will, and abandoning ourselves to His Providence can feel like letting go of the edge of the dock and trusting that He will catch us.

This episode is a personal reflection on:

• Perfectionism and people-pleasing
• The fear of abandonment
• Learning to accept God’s unconditional love
• The difference between being a “human doing” and a “human being”
• Trusting God instead of constantly relying on ourselves
• Discovering the freedom that comes from grace

“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matthew 22:39)

But how do we love others properly if we have never learned to receive love ourselves?

This is not a perfect reflection, and it does not offer easy answers. It is a journey of learning to believe what God has been telling us all along:

You are loved. You do not have to earn it.

#CrappyCatholic #MarkKwasny #CatholicReflection

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What if the neighbor Jesus told you to love is not just the person living next door?

What if that neighbor is you?

For years, I thought “love your neighbor as yourself” meant simply being kind to other people. But what happens when the person you spend the most time with is constantly criticizing you, judging you, and tearing you down?

What happens when the voice inside your own head becomes your worst enemy?

In this episode of Crappy Catholic, I explore what Jesus meant when He told us to love our neighbor, love our enemies, and treat others with compassion. Because if we would never talk to another person the way we sometimes talk to ourselves, why do we think it is acceptable to treat ourselves that way?

This is not about becoming arrogant or self-obsessed. It is about learning to see yourself the way God sees you: as someone created, loved, and worth caring for.

Maybe becoming more Christ-like starts with becoming a better neighbor to the person in the mirror.

#Catholic #CatholicFaith #CrappyCatholic #Jesus #SelfCompassion #SpiritualGrowth

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When we're kids, we're handed an invisible brochure about life.

It promises the perfect family.

The perfect marriage.

The perfect career.

The perfect church.

The perfect happily-ever-after.

Then reality shows up.

Families are dysfunctional. Marriages involve two imperfect people. Workplaces are filled with... well... people. Churches are hospitals for sinners, not museums for saints.

Maybe the brochure wasn't telling the whole story.

In this episode of Crappy Catholic, I talk about disappointment, disillusionment, why so many of us feel like life broke its promises, and why that realization can actually point us toward something much better.

Sometimes faith doesn't remove life's absurdity.

It teaches us to laugh at it while keeping our eyes on Heaven.

If you've ever looked around and thought, "This isn't what I signed up for," this episode is for you.

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Some people wake up, focus for eight uninterrupted hours, crush their goals, optimize their workflow, and become millionaires by age 25.

I hear footsteps upstairs and immediately abandon my entire personality.

In this episode, I talk about trying to create while living in a constant state of distraction, anxiety, responsibility, codependency, household chaos, barking dogs, crowing chickens, buzzing dryers, and the overwhelming feeling that every tiny noise in the house requires immediate investigation.

Also:

•  why productivity gurus terrify me, 
•  why every task somehow becomes life-or-death, 
•  why perfectionism makes simple things impossible, 
•  and why adult nap time should absolutely be mandatory. 

This may be the most honest episode I’ve recorded yet. Or maybe I’m just tired. Hard to say anymore.

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It started with a toaster.
A simple, innocent appliance whose only job used to be: bread goes in, toast comes out.

But not anymore.

In this episode, I spiral (gracefully… mostly) into the modern insanity of “smart” everything. What used to require one button now demands decisions, settings, updates, and—at one point—reading the manual… for a toaster. A toaster.

From there, things only get worse.

We take a walk down memory lane to a time when:

•  TVs had knobs instead of software updates 
•  Cars didn’t beep, blink, and emotionally judge your driving 
•  Phones stayed in one place and didn’t double as a space shuttle control panel 
•  Computers didn’t collapse into useless bricks the second Wi-Fi sneezed 

Somewhere along the way, simple became complicated… and “advanced” started feeling a lot like “annoying.”

This episode is a humorous rant about modern technology, everyday frustration, and the quiet suspicion that maybe… just maybe… we’ve made everything way harder than it needs to be.

Also:
 If the power ever goes out, we’re all standing around like confused squirrels.

Enjoy.

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We moved to the country chasing the dream: land, peace, maybe a few chickens… and possibly a holy, wholesome life.

What we got instead? Heat exhaustion, ER visits, falling off ladders, tractor accidents, lawsuits, dead chickens, and a strong suspicion that the property itself is cursed.

In this episode of Diary of a Crappy Catholic, I share what really happens when a suburban guy tries to become a homesteader in the Carolina heat… while juggling family struggles, unexpected chaos, and the slow realization that maybe—just maybe—this wasn’t my spiritual calling.

Turns out, the “simple life” isn’t simple. It’s just… louder.

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In this episode, I unpack how we casually ghost God while insisting we love Him — and why we’d never tolerate that behavior from a spouse, friend, or child.

Topics include:
• Treating God like the nerd in every 80s movie
• Sunday shopping theology
• Advent guilt
• Why effort matters even when you’re bad at Catholicism
• And how being a crappy Catholic still means actually trying

Spoiler: God understands… but that doesn’t mean we should stop caring.

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Why is it that the guy at the football stadium will take his shirt off, paint his chest, scream like a lunatic for four hours… but we Catholics can barely stay awake for a 55-minute Mass where JESUS CHRIST is literally present?

Yeah. I’m calling us out. And I’m calling myself out. 

Because for years I treated Catholicism like a spiritual DMV appointment—get in, get my hour, get out.

In this video, I dive into:
 🏈 Why sports fans have more zeal than most Catholics
 📚 How decades of awful catechesis left many of us lukewarm
 😬 Why so many of us grew up in Catholic homes that barely acted Catholic
 🔥 Why knowing the faith is the ONLY way to fall in love with it
 😑 How modern Catholic leadership often seems embarrassed to be… Catholic
 💥 And why maybe God is calling ordinary “crappy Catholics” like us to actually become the heroes we wish we had

If you’ve ever wondered why being Catholic sometimes feels like a chore… or why you’re not “on fire” the way the saints were… this one’s for you.

No guilt trips. No theologian-speak.
 Just a fellow Crappy Catholic trying to figure out how not to be so… crappy.

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"Jesus, I trust in You." Okay, you said the words... but do you trust in Him, really? Yeah, a lot of us are like that. We say we have confidence in God. We say we trust in Jesus, but get stuck in a traffic jam just once and the only thing you're trusting is that you can cuss up a blue streak at all the idiot drivers. 

Trusting God... having confidence in God... surrendering in God. It all sounds good until the rubber hits the road, life gets rough, and nothing is working out the way you want it to. 

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak...

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