Rethinking Vocational Discernment

Nearly everyone reading this has probably heard something on the subject of vocational discernment. For those accustomed to Catholic terminology, these words may evoke images of a retreat for young people praying to find their path in life, … [Read more...]

Book Reviews – June 2023

As a Priest Thinks, So He Is. Ed. by Beth Rath McGough and Patricia Pintado-Murphy. Reviewed by M. Ross Romero, S.J. (skip to review) Pray, Think, Act: Make Better Decisions with the Desert Fathers. By Augustine J. Wetta, O.S.B. Reviewed … [Read more...]

The Importance of Recognizing Satan’s Existence

This essay is a sequel to my article, “Disbelief in the Existence of Personified Evil” in the August 2020 issue of this same publication. In that article, I explained Satan’s identity, his motives, his ways, the times in which he attacks, an … [Read more...]

Book Reviews – August 2022

Configured to Christ: On Spiritual Direction and Clergy Formation. By Deacon James Keating. Reviewed by Rev. John P. Cush, STD. (skip to review) Married Priests in the Catholic Church. Ed. by Adam A.J. DeVille. Reviewed by John A. … [Read more...]

The Will of God

A story is told about a man who lived a long life. When he died, the Lord said, “Come, I will show you hell.” The man was taken to a room where a group of people sat around a round table. At the center of the table was a huge pot of stew. Ea … [Read more...]

Co-Responsibility, Personal Vocation, and Charism Discernment

In a 2009 address to the clergy of the Diocese of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the mission of the laity in our times by introducing a new term into the Church’s parlance: co-responsibility. The term has both ecclesiological and p … [Read more...]

Conscience: Christ’s Whisper in Our Moral Life

Elijah, who is “very jealous for the Lord” (1 Kgs 19:4, 14), meets the Lord on Mount Horeb. On the mount, a powerful wind blows, then an earthquake shakes the ground, and then a fire erupts; however, the Lord is not in these great “voices.” … [Read more...]

A Contribution of Madonna House to Synodality

The present article was occasioned by reading Adam DeVille’s recent book, Everything Hidden Shall Be Revealed: Ridding the Church of Abuses of Sex and Power (Angelico Press) (NIH). He sees one of the root causes of the sexual abuse scandal a … [Read more...]

Today’s Disbelief in the Existence of Personified Evil

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

In my vocation as a coach, I have regular contact with youth and young adults, and they often confide their troubles to me. I have met many who have struggled with temptation, fallen into sin, and become enslaved by sinful habits. Their … [Read more...]

Accompanying, Discerning, and Integrating Weakness in Marriage

Chapter eight and its footnotes of Amoris Laetitia begins with the above title and has been pilloried extensively by much of the people of God’s thinkers due to some ambiguities in light of sacred Tradition. However, the title is a m … [Read more...]

On Vulnerability and Self-Disclosure in Priestly Formation

Thoughts for Seminarians & Formators

By some accounts, millennials—the cultural cohort of young adults born in the early 1980s to the early 2000s—are the “vulnerability generation”, using their struggles, flaws, and personality quirks to their advantage, to connect with others … [Read more...]

Bl. Columba Marmion on Living in Christ

Fr. Aidan Nichols in his book, Christendom Awake, rightly points out that we have lost the cultural foundation of the spiritual life. In the modern world, God is perceived as absent and there is an intense focus on the individual. … [Read more...]

Sifting Interior Movements of the Heart

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving … [Read more...]

Simony in Spiritual Direction?

When I mentioned this thesis to my classmate, he deemed it “peculiar.” I had to apologize after shouting, “My thesis isn’t peculiar, what’s going on is peculiar!” My thesis is that direct, monetary payment to a spiritual director from his/he … [Read more...]