What is The Practicing Catholic?

The Practicing Catholic is a lay Catholic apostolate aiming to educate and inspire other Catholics to develop and practice their faith day-by-day, moment-by-moment to make the transition from Sunday Catholic to Practicing Catholic!

Liturgy of the Hours

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RSS Saint of the Day

  • St. Magdalen of Canossa (April 10, 2012)
    Wealth and privilege did nothing to prevent today's saint from following her calling to serve Christ in the poor. Nor did the protests of her relatives, concerned that such work was beneath her. […]

About Us

Joel and Lisa Schmidt (image courtesy of Stalzer Photography)

Joel and Lisa Schmidt

We (Joel and Lisa Schmidt) met on a blind date in Ames, IA when we were both graduate students at Iowa State University. Lisa was Catholic, and Joel was searching. RCIA took care of that, and we were soon married. Since then, we have always sought to live out the truth as best we knew it. However, you can’t apply what you don’t know, and the problem was, once RCIA ended, our formation essentially stopped. So, what next? We involved ourselves in many different ministries within our parish. Lisa: Eucharistic adoration, cantor, SoundTrack (Lisa’s praise band), RCIA team, parish council. Joel: Eucharistic adoration, RCIA catechist, extraordinary minister of holy communion, lector, Knights of Columbus. In addition, we were involved with a married couples small group faith-sharing movement called Teams of Our Lady. We were keeping busy doing good works and had a solid spiritual community, but we weren’t really growing in our faith. Then something happened.

Lisa took a job with a 45-minute commute and started listening to our brand new Catholic radio station, 1150 AM KWKY, out of Des Moines. Six months later, we moved to Des Moines, and now Joel was filling his long commute back and forth to Ames with Catholic radio. It was almost like RCIA was back in session! Most influential among the programs we heard were Catholic Answers and Christ is the Answer with Fr. John Riccardo. Catholic Answers armed us with greater knowledge about the Catholic faith, and Fr. Riccardo inspired us live it and share it. However, after moving to Des Moines, we found ourselves adrift in a large new parish, missing the spiritual community we previously had formed in Ames. God intervened again.

Lisa, Lucy, and Joel Schmidt (image courtesy of Jill Fleming Photography)

Lisa, Lucy, and Joel Schmidt

First, our daughter Lucy was born. Any parent knows that your children are always watching you and imitate everything you do. It’s kind of like walking around with a mirror in which you always have the opportunity to see the worst of yourself, which is good motivation to be the best of yourself all the time. Second, we both attended a Christ Renews His Parish retreat. We can’t recommend this program, or a similar one, highly enough. Our hearts were truly set on fire for God! We also became acutely aware that a lot of Catholics are hungry for the truth. However, in the absence of that we fill ourselves up with other things which may entertain but do not fulfill. Further, we discovered that between RCIA and Catholic radio, we were actually better catechized than most of the Catholics we knew. In conversation and small group discussions, we found ourselves constantly defending Catholic doctrine and teaching…to “practicing” Catholics!

And so was born our little apostolate. We are educated people, but we’re not theologians, philosophers, or apologists. Simply, we’re lay Catholics who God has called to share what we have learned and continue to learn about living the Catholic faith with other lay Catholics. We hope to educate and inspire you to develop and practice your Catholic faith day-by-day, moment-by-moment and make the transition from Sunday Catholic to Practicing Catholic!