In the three-year cycle of readings for the Solemnity of Christ the King, it might seem strange to have alternative Gospels that emphasize Christ’s weakness. What kind of kingship are we acknowledging and celebrating in Christ, the King?
“It’s hard! — Yes, I know. But, forward! No one will be rewarded — and what a reward! — except those who fight bravely.” ST. JOSEMARIA ESCRIVA The Way, no. 720 “The message of the cross if foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of […]
St Augustine of Hippo, with an insight born from personal experience, attests that it is by one’s personal struggle to be pure in heart and chaste in body that this integration of love takes place both within a man and in his relationships with God and neighbor.
Although St Monica is also known for her many deeds of mercy, it is her continual intercession for her son for which she is chiefly remembered and invoked by Christians throughout the ages.
“He has been raised; he is not here. But go into Galilee; there you will see him” (cf. Mk 16:6-7).
“Our transgressions and our sins are upon us; they weigh us down; and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?” (Ezekiel 33:10).
In the principal feasts of the liturgical year the Gospels mention the presence of women. Christmas, the Annunciation, the Visitation—all go without saying, because the New Eve, the Woman, is central.
All of the apostles reclining around the table at the Last Supper ask this question; one of them, Judas, asks it just to keep up appearances. He is about to set up Jesus for arrest and condemnation.
Throughout Lent the Roman liturgy often sings of the “rewards” or fruits of fasting and penance: sobriety and clarity of mind, a humbled heart, works of mercy, and forgiveness of sins—rewards that are gifts from God and which dispose us to an even greater attentiveness to Him.
“But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me’” (Mk 14:6).
When the Magi prostrated themselves before Christ, what sentiments must have filled their hearts? They must have thought: All of our hardship was worth it.
As one of the early Christian writers says, referring to union with God, ‘Everything that grows begins small. It is by constant and progressive feeding that it gradually grows big.’ So I say to you, if you want to become a thorough-going Christian … then you will have to be very attentive to the minutest […]
Our Lady’s parents lived most of their married life with a conspicuous absence. But being childless only intensified their turning to God, only increased their confidence in His wisdom and providence. They knew that the absence of something good was the preparation for something better.
“The feast of feasts awaits us in Heaven. … I assure you, and I say the same to myself, that our wedding garment has to be woven with our love of God, a love we will have learnt to reap even in the most trivial things we do. It is precisely those who are in love […]
Looking at my life, I see quite honestly that I myself am nothing, am worth nothing and have nothing, that I can do nothing and, even more, that I am nothingness itself! But He is everything and, at the same time, he belongs to me and I to him because he does not reject me […]
“Having no hope and without God in the world,” is St Paul’s bleak description of humanity without Christ (see Ephesians 2:12). Yet we know that even after Christ’s coming, feelings of hopelessness and abandonment, or weariness with life, can creep back into our lives…
The extraordinary story of the ‘stubborn’ Canaanite woman is about extraordinary faith exercised under unusual circumstances (Mt 15:21-28).
When the Church sets before us the example of a Saint to admire and imitate, we can become easily discouraged by trying to imitate the wrong things. We can certainly admire a Saint for his heroic virtues, charismatic gifts, and extraordinary mystical experiences. But the first thing we have to reckon with is a soul […]
Love the Third Person of the most Blessed Trinity. Listen in the intimacy of your being to the divine motions of encouragement or reproach you receive from him. Walk through the earth in the light that is poured out in your soul. And the God of hope will fill us with all peace, so that […]
Until now you had known that the Holy Spirit was dwelling in your soul, to sanctify it… But you hadn’t really grasped this truth about his presence. Now you feel his Love within you, and you want to talk to him, to be his friend, to confide in him… The Forge, no. 430 The New […]
