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April 2020

April 01, 2020

Book Recommendation: Meditations on the Way of the Cross

In these days of stay-at-home-orders and closed churches, many of us are looking for...

September 2019

September 12, 2019

Toni Morrison and the White Blindness of First Things

First Things has published an attempted takedown of the late Toni Morrison's faith and writing, and it's...

August 2017

August 28, 2017

Narcissism, Exorcism, and the True Nature of Evil

Sixty years ago, C.S. Lewis began his book, Mere Christianity by giving us an example...

August 09, 2017

Drinking Blood and Feeling Guilty: Jennifer the Damned is a Catholic Vampire

If you're a Catholic, you take your guilt to confession. Here's a confession for...

July 2017

July 10, 2017

I Love a Good Clean Murder

Best are those with minimal blood: perhaps poison, asphyxiation, or even strangulation. But even better...

April 2017

April 12, 2017

13 Reasons Why: Netflix Invites us to Spiritual Works of Mercy For Holy Week

(Two alerts. This review talks about rape, bullying and suicide. It also contains a lot...

January 2017

January 18, 2017

Trying to Say God (as artists)

A few years ago, Kaya Oakes wrote in America Magazine that "Catholic literary culture today...

January 13, 2017

And The Title For The Sick Pilgrim Book Is….

Jess: What do you think we should name our book? Jonathan: I dunno, what...

December 2016

December 19, 2016

Jesus Frankenstein: Mary’s Baby and Mary Shelley’s Hideous Progeny

“I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion to be spurned at, and kicked,...

November 2016

November 19, 2016

Fantastic Magic and Where to Find It

(Spoilers ahead, so don't whine.) Full disclosure: I'm a huge fan of the Harry Potter...

October 2016

October 09, 2016

Five Sacramentally Scary Books You Should Read for Halloween

(Possible Spoilers Ahead) As a supernatural thriller writer, I'm asked all the time about...

August 2016

August 02, 2016

Being a Dad is Hard….even for Harry Potter (a review)

(Ridiculous Spoilers Ahead) It took until the fourth Harry Potter book released for me to...

July 2016

July 05, 2016

Richard Beck Would Like to Introduce You to the Devil

In his new book, Reviving Old Scratch: Demons and the Devil for Doubters and the...

June 2016

June 26, 2016

Destroy the Walls: Modest Proposals for a Renewed Catholic (and Christian) Literary Imagination

A few weeks ago, a friend called me a "blue collar writer" and then...

April 2016

April 06, 2016

Sick Pilgrim Now Has Two Things in Common with the Pope

1. We're Catholic. 2. We share a publisher. We're writing a book for Loyola Press,...

April 04, 2016

The Nasty Truth of a Mother’s Heart

“They appear more often now, both of them, and on every visit they seem more...

March 2016

March 22, 2016

Losing It: Colleen Mitchell Reads Seth Haines

I’ve been reading Seth Haines’s memoir Coming Clean, soaking up his call to make my...

March 21, 2016

Entering the Story: The Imaginative Power of Traditional Worship

When my friend Amy converted to Catholicism ten years ago, she wrote me a letter confessing that she...

March 13, 2016

Dear Pope Francis: A Theology Book for Adults

My three hooligans love Pope Francis. They begged me to take them to Philadelphia...

March 10, 2016

Catholic Books Even a Protestant Could Love

I'm not Catholic, but some of my favorite books are. I came of age during...

March 08, 2016

First Ever Sick Pilgrim Discussion Shindig and Hootenanny During Holy Week! (Details Inside)

So, along with the many developing Sick Pilgrim media things (Radio show with Breadbox...

March 07, 2016

Sick Pilgrim Interview: Dave and llyssa Kyu and their National Park Story Project

(We at Sick Pilgrim love pilgrimages, stories and the National Parks. So, when we...

March 02, 2016

My Top Spiritual Books: Jessica Mesman Griffith

"Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me." --Flannery O'Connor This...

February 2016

February 26, 2016

The Dark Devotional: Third Sunday of Lent: Burned, but not Consumed

A Reading from the Book of Exodus. There an angel of the LORD appeared to Moses...

February 25, 2016

Uncle Jonathan’s Top Five Sick Pilgrim Books of All Time

In case you haven't noticed, we like to read around these parts. Sharing...

February 23, 2016

Wayfarers All: The Gifts of an Unsettled Life

There’s a chapter in Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows called “Wayfarers All.” I remembered...

February 18, 2016

Review of The Third Inkling, a biography of Charles Williams (a very Sick Pilgrim indeed)

Two weeks ago, my review of The Third Inkling, a biography of Charles Williams, was...

February 15, 2016

A Band of Misfits

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. (Matthew 4:17) "Heaven must be messy." --Eric Elnes, Gifts...

February 01, 2016

How Writing a Foreword for an Inkling Smashed My Idols

A few years go, I was having dinner with the editor of my first two...

January 2016

January 26, 2016

Sick Pilgrims: Jack Kerouac

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are...