“I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!” (Lk 12:49-53) The fire of God’s Love, like any big fire, spreads on contact: one tree ignites the next one and that sets […]
“Who of us can live with the consuming fire?” asks the prophet Isaiah, a question that should resonate with anyone who not only tries to serve God but to grow very close to Him (Is 33:14). Something about closeness to God makes us feel the heat of a consuming fire. The canonization of Elizabeth of […]
Saints have the uncanny ability to startle us with their insights into the basic truths of our faith. Until a holy person comes along and embodies the Gospel, its radical demands might suffer the fate of a museum piece—safely under glass, to be admired but not handled. In Saints we witness how grace works “in […]
Once when the Lord journeyed near the village of Nain, He was met by a particularly distressing funeral procession: “A man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow” (see Luke 7:11-17). But the Lord’s pity would not allow the grief to last. Within moments […]
Nothing disappoints more than misplaced hope. And maybe nothing is easier to misplace than our hope. St Josemaria even considers that… “perhaps there is no greater tragedy for man than the sense of disillusionment he suffers when he has corrupted or falsified his hope, by placing it in something other than the one Love which […]
Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:7-8 If God’s love is proved by a sacrificial death for the salvation of people dead […]
“Ever since I began to preach, I have warned people against a certain mistaken sense of holiness. Don’t be afraid to know your real self. That’s right, you are made of clay. Don’t be worried. For you and I are sons of God — and that is the right way of being made divine. We […]
“Let us also contemplate his blessed Mother, who is our Mother too. We find her on Calvary, at the foot of the Cross, praying. This is nothing new for Mary. She has always acted like this, as she fulfilled her duties and looked after her home. As she went about the things of this earth […]
“I know of a young man whose loneliness was cured by a priest’s simple reminder during a Sunday homily: ‘With Jesus always present in the tabernacle, we never have a reason to feel lonely.’ Sometimes we need to be reminded of the obvious, and perhaps it takes a particularly difficult moment for a familiar truth […]
The Blessed Trinity’s love for man is made permanent in a sublime way through the Eucharist. Many years ago, we all learned from our catechism that the Eucharist can be considered as a sacrifice and as a sacrament; and that the sacrament is present to us both in communion and as a treasure on the […]