Where is the ordinary corner of your life – where Jesus is waiting for you to love? Begin searching for these with me, today. Let’s love in the small parts of our lives.
If Peter wonders how he could ever love the Lord again, Jesus answers, If you love me, keep my commandments, that is, always respond to me as you do now: “Yes, Lord.”
By the mid-1940’s, St. Josemaria Escriva had witnessed the apostolate of Opus Dei, which he founded, beginning to spread throughout Spain and abroad.
I’d like to have a moment of your time. I’m not asking for myself, but on behalf of the Lord Jesus.
Grace renews a man from within and converts a sinner and rebel into a good and faithful servant. The source of all grace is God’s love for us, and he has revealed this not just in words but also in deeds.
The liturgical prayers for the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension ask that we might follow Christ to the place where He has gone.
The idea that God called me right where I was with this husband and these children and the constant dirty dishes, dirty diapers, and dirty bathrooms was literally life altering. It gave meaning to who I was and what I was doing day in and day out.
By now we in the Church are very comfortable applying the term vocation to any state in life that aims at serving God. We use the word broadly to indicate that everyone’s life has something to contribute to the up-building of the kingdom of God on earth and the salvation of souls.
At the end of His earthly life, our Lord sought to teach His disciples how they would remain united to Him in His absence. They certainly wanted this, as their distress at Jesus’ imminent departure shows.
Everyone is wounded by original sin and by subsequent personal sins. Everyone has been wounded by the sins of others. What we do with these wounds largely decides the depth of our inner peace.
The story of two discouraged men making a long journey home after having witnessed the Lord’s grueling passion (Luke 24:13-35) is pure balm for the suffering soul, especially for any suffering in the ways St Josemaria indicates: having lost a sense of hope or of meaning in life.
That Christ has come to us with a heart made of flesh tells us a lot about how the Sacred Heart loves us, and about the kind of love we need. We are loved by any number of hearts during our earthly lives, but one alone among them we call Sacred.
The gospel appointed for the Solemnity of St Joseph just might break all the rules for discipleship. Jesus asks to be followed, but here he has effectively hidden himself from His parents, staying behind in Jerusalem without notifying anyone.
The Lord promised Simeon that he would not see death before he had seen the Christ of God. The fulfillment of that promise alone was enough to justify an entire lifetime of waiting and contemplating.
You’ve begun to live the spiritual life in earnest. You say your daily prayers and make your daily meditation. Is there more?
What does the voice of the Good Shepherd sound like? Would you know it if you heard it?
Perhaps no question comes more frequently to the sincere and devout person trying to live an authentic spiritual life than, “Am I doing it right?” Or, “Am I missing something?”
At Christmas our thoughts turn to the different events and circumstances surrounding the birth of the Son of God. As we contemplate the stable in Bethlehem or the home of the holy family in Nazareth, Mary, Joseph and the child Jesus occupy a special place in our hearts.
In the three-year cycle of readings for the Solemnity of Christ the King, it might seem strange to have Gospels that emphasize Christ’s weakness. Instead of seeing the Lord in triumph, we often see Him judged and condemned or hanging from the cross.
A burning lamp is a Biblical symbol of vigilance, fidelity. Waiting servants, no less than the ten virgins of the wedding party, are expected to keep their lamps supplied with oil for one purpose: keeping the lamp’s light aflame. And that flame means much more than light to see by.