Father Michael Gaitley is quickly becoming known for promoting the Divine Mercy through every means possible. A priest of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, he is director of the Association of Marian Helpers, which assists others in growing spiritually and raises funds for seminarians. He has two best-selling books in print and speaks at […]
Why did future saints like Blessed John Paul II go to confession on a weekly basis, sometimes even more frequently? Why did Archbishop Fulton Sheen recall with delight how the nuns whose confessions he heard did not spare their venial sins in the confessional, even though Church law only requires the confession of mortal sins?
This homily was preached at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul on Easter morning, the thirty-first day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen. My brothers and sisters in the Risen Christ: For the forty days known as Lent we have been on a pilgrimage, journeying with Jesus and His […]
Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr., author of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, has re-issued his 2008 book Sacred Then and Sacred Now: The Return of the Old Latin Mass. In this book, Woods writes about Pope Benedict XVI’s famous Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, which allowed for the Roman Liturgy according to the Missal […]
The path of life is never really easy for any of us. Even for Christians, life is still a struggle. Jesus didn’t say “Believe in me so you can sit around doing nothing.” He said “Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” Then He proceeded to be tried and convicted, scourged, crowned […]
Divine Mercy Sunday Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Acts 10:34,37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; Psalm 118:1-2,16-17,22-23; John 20:1-9) Divine Mercy, Jesus’ Gift to Each One of Us My Lord and my God! (John 20:28) When a child is conceived in the mother’s womb, one cell is knitted to another. The parents’ genes combine in […]
A review of the Popes in the twentieth century find them fighting a fierce battle against the forces of secularism, atheism, and malevolance that have consumed Western Civilization. Collectively these forces, referred to as “Modernity,” are merely contemporary expressions of the evils that have collapsed empires and civilizations for thousands of years. The election of […]
In 1999, Tracy Sands was inspired while listening to Christian music at a church event. With only a pen and the program she received at the door to work with, she began sketching quickly. The urge to create was so strong she “felt as though she would pop if she didn’t get the ideas out […]
On a November morning before dawn my wife and I, and three other people on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, followed a Franciscan priest into the small edicule that surrounds Jesus’ tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The priest was going to say Mass, and he was pleased that we could […]
“The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer. This holds true both for the individual and for society. A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through “com-passion” is a cruel and inhuman society. […]
Isaiah the greatest of the prophets told the story of the Lord’s passion seven hundred years before the birth of the Christ. The prophecies of Isaiah are so clear that he even provided the world with the name of the Lord: Emmanuel — God is with us. As it is written: the suffering Messiah was […]
The end of November, 2011 saw the one-year anniversary of the “new” translation of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Liturgy. Like many others, I welcomed the new translation. When I began hearing some of its texts, I heard a more dignified, elevated language that spoke more directly to the heavenly Mysteries the Liturgy purports […]
Last year, I helped teach high school students at my parish’s faith formation program in St. Ignace, Michigan. We took the students to exposition, and afterward, one of them asked me how to tell when she is hearing God’s voice. This is an edited version of the letter I wrote her. Dear M., I’m glad […]
When the sacrament of baptism is discussed, much attention is placed upon the fact that we share in Christ’s offices of Priest and Prophet. Little attention is paid (especially here in the land of democracy) to the third office we are enrolled in: that of King. This truth should be a source of great shame […]
Our relationship with the things of this world requires a very delicate balance between loving creation and allowing it to rule our hearts. The Lord is very clear in Scripture that we are to bow to only One Being. Surprisingly, our TV screen or our iPhone is not that Supreme Being who demands our full […]
Yet if the impulse is noble, then that means there’s a hint of truth to this. So why the emphasis on the smallest bits of liturgical discipline? Why nitpick? In short, we are trying to be like the just servants in the parable of the talents.
On February 10, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI announced his intention to renounce the papacy due to his waning strength in the face of a world “subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith.” Many, including me, understood him to mean that navigating the obstacles (some […]
Easter Sunday Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Acts 10:34,37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; Psalm 118:1-2,16-17,22-23; John 20:1-9) Jesus is Alive, We Are New Creations in Him He saw and believed. (John 20:8) Alleluia! Christ is risen! Father, we exult in your glory! We rejoice, turning our thoughts to the One who lives, who is […]
Recently, some friends queried me about the alleged apparitions known as “Rosa Mistica” (Mystical Rose). From their questions, it seemed to me that there is a growing interest in the English-speaking world in Rosa Mistica. I decided to devote myself to some research and to write an article summarizing the information. What follows is the […]
The present and former Pope met yesterday (March 24), in a moment without precedent. And the words which remain are the ones spoken by Pope Francis to Benedict: “We are brothers.” As Nicole Winfield put it in her comprehensive Associated Press dispatch article: “The two men in white embraced and showed one another the deference […]
Following is the whole text of Pope Francis’ homily during the Palm Sunday Mass that begins the Holy Week celebrations. The Holy Father commented on the World Youth Day that the entire Church celebrates today, asking that we live the faith “with a young heart”. The pontiff urged the youth to “tell the world that […]
On August 31 in 2009, I – then a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Times – followed a Capuchin friar from the chapel at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Tampa to his desk in his office next door. Fr. John Aurilia, then Most Holy Redeemer’s pastor, agreed to let me interview him for the paper. I […]
If you’re of a certain age, you’ll recognize the title from an old folk hymn; we sang it repeatedly at Folk Mass in the 70’s and early 80’s. While the song itself is no longer popular, the message behind it is timeless. I was contacted to see an inpatient at one of our busiest hospitals. […]
The key thing that Pope Francis did yesterday was to greet Patriarch Bartholomew I, ecumenical patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, based in Constantinople, as “my brother Andrew.” Now, Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, the first Bishop of Rome. They were fishermen together on the Sea of Galilee, 2,000 years ago. So Pope […]
