Please click here for part one. In 1967 I was 14 years old. One summer evening at the cottage, dad and I were playing chess at a table outside. The last vestiges of sunset sparkled on the lake then fading into dusk. Crickets could be heard in the distance. A fire crackled in the fire-pit giving […]
The 50th International Eucharist Congress was held in Dublin between the 10th to the 17th of June 2012. The Congress was not confined exclusively to Dublin however but was in part celebrated at Ireland’s national Marian Shrine in Knock and at Saint Patrick’s Purgatory in Donegal. The overall theme of the Congress was “Communion with […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24; Psalm 30:2,4-6,11-13; 2 Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15; Mark 5:21-43) Prayer, A Time for a Personal Encounter with the Lord “He looked around to see who had done it.” (Mark 5:32) Sometimes our prayer life can feel a little like a gumball dispenser. We put a […]
Saint Josemaria Escriva relentlessly telling it like it is: If you say that you want to imitate Christ… and yet have time on your hands, then you are on the road to lukewarmness. (The Forge, 701) The first time I read that it really stung. It stung so bad that I printed it out and […]
Heroic deeds. Quiet sanctity. Courageous martyrdom. These virtues present themselves over and over again in the stories of the many martyrs for the faith. The movie in theaters now, “For Greater Glory,” awes the public with its gutsy stories of the religious and lay martyrs of Mexico, who chose horrible torture and death rather than […]
Many years ago, I was asked to give my personal testimony to a church. I would like to share some of what I said that day, and expand on it. It’s rather long, so I will break it up into parts. Please forgive my self-indulgence. I hope you find a kernel of truth from my experience to help […]
Father’s Day, in the United States especially, has become a day to recognize the important place of dad. While the celebration itself may be focused on a Father’s Day card, a gift, or a special meal, at its heart is the recognition that a father plays a singularly important role in the life of a […]
Do you want to rock the world? Like St. Francis who moved spiritual mountains and Mother Teresa who moved heaven and earth to serve the poor, we can change the world. We would not be here if God did not plan for just that. He put us here to make a difference in every walk […]
A Heart on Fire: Rediscovering Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by James Kubicki, S.J. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2012 Sometimes people feel as if devotions such as that to the Sacred Heart went the way of the horse and buggy after Vatican II. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, […]
O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! (Psalm 95: 6) To kneel before God is a blessed thing. We are the only creatures who roam the earth with a free will, and the only ones with the freedom to give homage by kneeling to the One […]
“If we wish to discover in all its richness the profound relationship between the Church and the Eucharist, we cannot neglect Mary, Mother and model of the Church…Mary can guide us toward this most holy sacrament because she herself has a profound relationship with it.” (Blessed Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia) At the […]
We are all called to holiness. Sometimes this can seem like an impossible call, especially when things get tough. And, at times the path to heaven can look like a fork in the road. What to do? If you read the lives of the saints, you’ll discover that they’re all so different that no one […]
Thirty-plus years ago, during my first semester of college, I found out that my student loans didn’t come through due to a glitch in the paper work. I dropped out of college and joined the army. To be honest, at the time I wasn’t a serious student. Nevertheless, I thought that by dropping out I […]
How many times have we met with dear friends who are distraught about a family member, perhaps a child who has left the faith or a family crisis hinging on poor decisions? After looking at the details, exploring the possible harms, and coming to grips with what is at stake, the conversation usually ends with […]
Fr. Stefan Starzynski’s book, Miracles: Healing for a Broken World (Our Sunday Visitor) is one of those faith-building books that every observant Catholic should read at least once. While this book is not quite a new release, I read it and thought, “How and why did I not hear about this book sooner?” The book […]
And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. (Luke 1:35) When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled […]
The way Willie Bloomquist sees it, he’s living an impossible dream. Of all the players who try to make it to the major leagues, only a relative few actually get there. Bloomquist is one of those few, but he doesn’t attribute this to his own skills. The 34-year-old Port Orchard, Wash., native says he’s not […]
For The Death Haunted Art of Friendship (Part I), go here. How often in Scripture we find violence mingled with love, like water mingled with wine: in the Song of Songs, the watchmen beating the lover as she searches the city for her beloved; in Genesis, Abram’s knife poised over Isaac’s breast. Yet it is […]
“Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Isaiah 45:15). Man is haughty and prideful, and in his conceit he constructs deities to suit his temperament: deities regal and terrible, blazing with fierce glory and swollen with righteous strength. It is not therefore surprising that so many fail to […]
Style, Sex, & Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things that Really Matter, edited buy Hallie Lord, is full of spiritual truths and spunk! The ten women who each tackle a different current issue seem to hit most of the hot topics usually found splashed across the covers of women’s tabloids, but from a Catholic […]
Growing up with a chronically ill mother, I found it very difficult to embrace Marian devotions as an adult. A true and present (and perfect!) mother did not seem real to me. Just as a faithful father reflects the love of God the Father to his children, a faithful mother reflects the love of the […]
“He moved about freely with them in Jerusalem, and spoke out boldly in the name of the Lord. He also spoke and debated with the Hellenists, but they tried to kill him.” (Acts 9:29, NAB) When St. Paul began traveling throughout the Roman Empire, truly going into the culture of death in order to proclaim […]
“Qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur.” —The words of the consecration of the wine in the Mass, meaning literally “(my blood) which is poured out for you and for many” “But when He added pro multis He wanted that there be understood the rest of those chosen (electos) from the Jews or from the […]
Belief in God increases with age. That is the finding of a longitudinal study by researchers at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. The Center conducted three surveys on religious faith, questioning people of different age groups in 30 different countries. The surveys—conducted in 1991, 1998, and again in 2008—explored the range of […]
