Happy New Year Friends!

First of all, thank you so much for joining us here and being part of our lives and our journey as a family of faith. This blog would technically be able to exist without you, but it wouldn’t be the same, as what we write here is meant to be shared.

As such, this year has been very cool for us and we are so, so thankful.

Over 15,000 unique people have been on our website, and viewed our content over 27,000 times. Lorelei became a columnist for Catholic Stand, and has contributed to ChurchPop. Her written conversion story was featured in the Coming Home Network’s newsletter for December, and she was a guest on The Journey Home to share her conversion story.

If you haven’t entered yet, there’s still time to enter our giveaway for reaching over 500 followers!!! It’s totally free to enter, and all you need to do is take a quick peek at this post and leave the appropriate comment to gain up to 4 entries. We promise the prize will be of the utmost quality. 🙂 Click here!!!

Now, without further ado, here are This Catholic Family’s Top 10 posts of 2017, based on number of views.

10- What Happened At Our First Catholic Small Group

This was a fun one to write, because we were trying something new at our parish. Since that first meeting, we’ve ended up re-working the structure of the group, took a break, and are starting off again in the new year, with some new ideas and new wisdom. We hope to write about what we’ve learned, and where we are headed once we’re back under way in 2018!

9- Catholic 101: Make up your minds already! The sitting, standing, and kneeling of Mass

A lot of times Mass can be confusing for people who aren’t Catholic and don’t understand why we do certain things at certain times. The Catholic 101 series is aimed at filling that gap, and the hope is it can be a resource for Catholics who have non-Catholics visiting Mass. Something short and digestible that helps orient people and makes some meaningful connections.

8- A New Catholic Reflects on the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation

Being someone who has been on both sides of the Reformation divide, I felt I might have a unique perspective to offer amongst a lot of posts celebrating the Reformation, and a lot of posts regretting it. We got great feedback from this article, and are thankful for the dialogue it started, and for what it contributed to the thoughts being articulated at the time.

7- Why I Pray To Saints

There are so many misconceptions about why Catholics do what they do. And the term “praying to Saints” is one of those things that is often misunderstood. I thought it would be helpful to articulate how Catholics use the word “pray” in regard to praying to Saints and how it’s different from when the word is used in reference to prayer to God. Lorelei was interviewed on the Son Rise Morning Show in regard to this article in the summer of 2017.

6- 5 Things A Catholic Can Do To Help A Protestant Feel Comfortable at Mass

Another gap-bridging article, this addresses some of the experiences I had while attending Mass as a Protestant. They are simple, easy things, but could go a long way in helping someone feel less a stranger, and more a welcome guest.

5- My Experience on EWTN’S The Journey Home

This one was so. much. fun! It was just a joy to chronicle my trip to appear on the show, and share some behind the scenes info with those who watched. To this day I’m still blown away by the hospitality of those at the Coming Home Network, and am humbled by the opportunity to share my story. Watch my episode here.

4- Why I Accept the Authority of the Catholic Church

I have to admit, I was nervous to write this one. It was one of the first times I articulated exactly why I believe in the Catholic Church, and it was also one of the first major posts I shared on my personal Facebook page with many of my Protestant friends. I was nervous because I knew many of them would disagree with me, and because I hadn’t had many opportunities before then to share any large portion of my journey. But I’m so glad I wrote this. Many people connected with the article and shared that they, too, had similar experiences on their journey to the Catholic Church. I’m proud I wrote about what I believe to be true, and why I believe it. It’s one of my favorite articles to date.

3- Do Catholics Have A Different Bible?

This one comes up on search engines now when people Google about the differences between the Protestant and Catholic Bibles. My goal in writing this was to answer the question of why there different books in the two Bibles, and which canon has the strongest claim to truth. I didn’t know any of this when I was a Protestant. But, through RCIA and my journey home, I learned about the history of the canon, and how the Catholic Church has the absolute strongest claim for what books belong in there.

2- 7 Misconceptions I Held About The Catholic Church Before Becoming Catholic

This article was also published on ChurchPOP. It basically just breaks down some misconceptions I had about The Church, or my ‘default’ anti-Catholic position, and then follows that with some alternate ways to think about those misconceptions. I think, often in life, it benefits us to challenge our default position, and be open to viewing alternate options. I chronicle some of my processes here, which ultimately opened my heart and mind to objectively assess the Catholic Church for the first time in my life.

1- Why Human Traffickers Aren’t Following You Around Walmart

It’s interesting to me that our Number 1 post of the year isn’t directly related to being Catholic! But the writing of it was timely. It was right around the time all kinds of ‘news’ stories were coming out about normal families shopping in major retailers and being tailed by potential human traffickers. As someone who volunteers for and spends time with women who actually are at risk of being trafficked, I felt it was important to address the rampant misconceptions about how human trafficking operates, and to hopefully shed some light on a few alternate and productive ways to spend one’s time/money if there is a desire to help. This is also a topic I hope to write more on in the future, particularly with regard to the work I do with a team of others who share a heart for women who are hurting and in a very dark place.

That’s All, Folks!

Well, not really :). We have a whole new year ahead to share more of our life and faith with you all. We can’t believe how many people’s lives we’ve been able to intersect with via this blog, and our thankfulness abounds.

We hope to see you all back here again in 2018, and often! We love when readers comment on a post, or email us. We’re here to encourage, uplift, share, and open our hearts and family to you.

And, for the love of all that is good- go ahead and take a sec to enter our giveaway! It’s a small way we can say thanks for spending time with us at This Catholic Family.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

-The Savaryns