After a two-week absence, I am back home in Indiana. It will take a bit to recover my bearings and figure out what this blog needs to be right now, so bear with me, if you like. Or if you don’t like, go somewhere else!

Just a few notes from a rapid blog-survey:

Barb Nicolosi has read my mind. We’re not in the same business nor do we have the same responsibilities, but I’m feeling what she’s feeling, in my own little corner of the "I’ve written 13 books in 7 years…now what?" world.

The Roaming Roman is back in the States, but still posting notes from her Rome time – including the Corpus Christi Mass and procession and she’s revived her old blog, Veritatis Splendor, as well.

Chesterteens – a blog for teenage Chesterton fans!

From a week ago, Fr. Jim Tucker with a good commentary on that WaPo article on "non-traditional weddings" and the purpose of a Catholic wedding:

Then, after the thirty grand has been spent on limousines, photographers, dresses, reception halls, and so forth, the couple can calmly reflect on their relationships to Christ and the communion of the faithful. Perhaps, once the festivities are out of the way, they will see that something is lacking, that they need the Eucharist and the other Sacraments, that the Church is necessary for the flourishing of their relationships with God, that they want their children to grow up surrounded by the riches of a Catholic life. They can then start coming back to Mass, start praying at home as a family, start examining their lives against the Commandments. They can return to the original question of whether they want to spend their lives with each other and to lead each other to Paradise. They may well find that now they can answer all those pre-marriage questions with "yes." Then they are ready to call up their parish and start preparations to receive the Sacrament of Matrimony in an intimate ceremony of convalidation.

So, I really don’t feel threatened by the growing proportion of these do-it-yourself weddings. In fact, I welcome their existence because they give attractive options to people who aren’t interested in all the Catholic obligations that come with a Catholic marriage. Any Catholic who seriously considers those non-traditional weddings as a serious possibility for his or her own wedding probably isn’t yet ready for the Sacrament of Matrimony to begin with.

And pray for Mark Shea’s mom.

Congratulations to the blogging Pawlaks, who are expecting a baby.