What Israel’s story makes painfully obvious is that following the Lord is a lifelong lesson in “I believe, but help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).
Faith holds on to the truth of who Jesus is revealed to be, despite our sometimes incongruent experience with God.
This is an excerpt from the first chapter of A Reasoned Defense of the Faith by Adam Francisco (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 1-3.

All Articles

Paul knew, and so do we: the law doesn’t change hearts or heal the world. More demands won’t do the trick.
Salvation is not simply transactional; it is fundamentally relational. Not anemic, but full-blooded. Not disembodied, but bodied.
God makes all things new. He refashions us from those turned in upon ourselves, turned to idols of our own choice and making, to experience the freedom He gives by pronouncing us His righteous children.
What does being free from sin, which is obviously a good thing, have to do with being free from the Law, which sounds dangerous?
Good works do not give us a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. Rather, good works result from righteousness given by the good work of the Righteous One on the cross.
My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.
Epiphany celebrates that we have not been left in our hearts’ cold darkness and this spoiled creation.
This year, I’m more excited for Epiphany than I am for Christmas.
The church does well to remind the world that God is unmasked, indeed, that God has unmasked himself in the person of Jesus.
God has forgiven us our trespasses in Christ Jesus and it is his grace that begins the transformation process making us into little forgivers.
The way through loneliness will lie in the blessing of solitude and the care of God.
St John of the Cross' feast day on December 14 commemorates the day of his death in 1591, at the height of the Catholic renewal movement that followed the Reformation.