In view of St. Charles’ recent canonization, we share with you an excerpt from “Home Again” by Fr. John Henry Hanson, O. Praem.
The Lord warns us against angrily calling another “You fool!” (Mt 5:12). But the fact that He calls certain individuals foolish shows that some merit the epithet (cf. Mt 7:26, 23:17, et al.).
In this interview, the St. Josemaria Institute speaks with Joe who shares how the St. Josemaria Apostolate of Evangelization began and is growing beyond their hopes and expectations!
In 1990, Israeli construction workers uncovered a chamber tomb containing a very ornate ossuary (or bone box) with the name “Joseph, son of Caiaphas” inscribed on it.
In the spiritual life we have to reckon with a unique “balance of power” between what God can do and what we can do.
Jesus has been invited once again to a dinner. His host has insisted on his coming, eager to offer Him a special reception. But an unexpected event interrupts them.
Pope St John Paul II in his 1980 encyclical letter “On The Mercy of God,” Dives In Misericordia, observed that modern man is uncomfortable with the idea of mercy.
All sorts of questions fill the air on Easter morning, on that first morning of our new life: “Who will roll us back the stone?” “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?”
The Lord wants us always to bear in mind two things: the mercy we have received, and where that mercy comes from: the Cross of Jesus.
The Church has one question for the world. It is a question asked of rich and poor, of the powerful and the weak, of those behind bars and those relaxing on the beach: Are you happy?
The Prodigal Son went out looking for heaven on earth. He was restless at home. He entertained a fantasy that things could be better elsewhere—in a faraway place, with different people, where he could be carefree, an anonymous rogue.
A friend of mine once told me: “You are never freer than when you are doing God’s will, and never less free than when you are doing your own.” There you have the Annunciation.
The devil’s “territory,” apart from those “kingdoms of the world” he claimed as his own when tempting Christ, might be difficult to map out—it was, after all, into the swept and tidied house that the unclean spirit returned with a company of devils worse than himself (cf. Lk 4:5; Mt 12:43-45).
As a teenager, St. Josemaria Escriva followed the normal course of a high school student. He aimed to be a good student, get excellent grades, and dreamed of being an architect. Becoming a priest was not what St. Josemaria had originally thought was for him.
The saying goes that most people see only what they want to see. If that’s true, then most of us live with a kind of selective blindness.
God wants us to remember. Satan wants us to forget. By distractions, promises, and vanities Satan dupes us into forgetting how merciful God has been to us.
We are at the beginning of Lent: a time of penance, purification and conversion. It is not an easy program, but then Christianity is not an easy way of life.
St. Josemaria would invite people to take the Holy Family as their model and also to try their best, with daily self-giving, to make their family life into a foretaste of heaven.
“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are…. Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 Jn 3:1-2).
Whenever our Lady appears on earth it is to remind us of something that we are neglecting. She never comes to reveal something new, but to express in a new and forceful way what we should already know.