Do you ever struggle with taking your young — or not-so-young — kids to Mass?

Me too.

I share some anecdotes and (hopefully) helpful advice in my latest column at CatholicMom.com, “Yeah, that’s my kid.”

Then there’s a column that ran in our diocesan paper this week — one that I didn’t expect them to use as I submitted it back in September — called “Blessing of a Bad Day” (scroll down past the first column on the page).

I’ve had some bad days recently, and this particular column ran in the same issue as my mother-in-law’s sister‘s death announcement. She was a big fan of my writing, so I like to think of this piece, one I had forgotten all about, as a sort of message from her.

I’m going to try to remember that when I have a rough day.