Sometimes when we hear the Gospel proclaimed at Mass we are so encouraged and consoled that we think: I cannot be lost. Other times we hear it and we might think: How will I ever be saved?
Jesus replied to Pilate’s questioning: My kingship is not of this world… At a later stage in the interview Jesus tells the Roman Procurator: I am a king. For this I was born… Although the Reign of Christ is not of this world, it has its beginnings here.
Christian identity begins and ends with childhood—the unique childhood of the children of God.
A reflection on love for the sacred liturgy must begin beneath an old tree.
In this paradise everyone feels free, at home, accepted, and loved in ways which far surpass whatever freedom, acceptance, or love we have ever experienced on earth. Here, we meet the saints as friends.
For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us. St Teresa of Avila: The Book of Her Life, ch. 8, 5. Although we might associate St Teresa’s spirituality with the extraordinary—with her numerous visions, […]
Each generation should consider what it will leave to future ones: what we need to do, and how we need to do it, so that tomorrow’s world may be better than today’s.
St Josemaria often evokes images of fire and light to show how the Christian faith is spread from one heart to another.
Saints have the uncanny ability to startle us with their insights into the basic truths of our faith.
Learning to contemplate and to suffer in union with Christ is where we begin to experience our own resurrection. Suffering in union with Christ, we become free to love and to be loved in God’s way.
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.
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.
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.