Prayer as the Gateway to Mystery

For a Christian, mystery is reverenced as that hidden dimension in things, people, situations and life which is beyond time, place or physical description. We may understand aspects of this esoteric reality beyond us and we can appreciate … [Read more...]

Patience a Spiritual Sign

Pope Francis and Tertullian on Patience

Pope Francis set forth the vision for his pontificate in his first apostolic exhortation Evangellii gaudium, a clarion call for evangelization through joy in the modern world. A fitting diptych to this first document is his most recent … [Read more...]

Early Summer Reading

I Burned for Your Peace. Augustine's Confessions Unpacked by Peter Kreeft. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2016). Reviewed by Matthew K. Minerd, Ph.L. Desiring a Better Country: Forays in Political Theology by Douglas Farrow. (Montreal &a … [Read more...]

Reflections on the Indissolubility of Marriage and the Trinity

The source of our holiness as Christians is rooted in the revelation of God as Trinity with an interior life of total reciprocal, self-giving love between unique, distinct Persons who are, together, the Divine Unity. But the Divine Trinity … [Read more...]

Vulnerability as a Place of Divine Encounter

God acts only for the good. God acts only to share himself as Love, namely, Jesus Christ. The human person is invited to respond to this revelation of love with his own vulnerability; he is invited to allow God to act in his being. In … [Read more...]

Catholic Men, the Spiritual Life, and Our Growth in Holiness-Perfection

Living Faith as Conversion, Knowledge, and Joy According to the Thought of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

A Catholic Christian spiritual life has often been described in terms of “ways,” “stages,” “degrees,” and “conversions.”[1. See, e.g., among many books on the topic, Fr. John J. Pasquini, Light, Happiness and Peace: Journeying Through Tradit … [Read more...]

Prayer as the Wellspring for Positive Transformation

As long as we are faithful to prayer, we maintain a clarity of vision that promotes higher ideals and elevated standards of conduct.  ... The more we pray, the more its fruits nourish our daily lives. John Chrysostom once wrote: “Prayer i … [Read more...]

The will of God

Editorial, May 2011

Over the years, in reading the lives of the saints, I have noted that they have tried to find God’s will in their lives. When they found it, they did all they could to follow it. There are many different paths to holiness—to which we are all … [Read more...]

Holiness of priests

Editorial, June 2010

Recently I was re-reading Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s book Those Mysterious Priests (1974), published five years before his death on December 9, 1979. In Chapter 7 he talks about how the priest continues the Incarnation of God by sharing in … [Read more...]

A Thirst for Jesus

I THIRST: SAINT THERESE OF LISIEUX AND MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA by Jacques Gauthier. Staten Island, New York: Society of St. Paul, 21878 Victory Blvd, Staten Island, NY 10314-6603, Paperback, 103 Pgs, $14.95.

St. Therese of Lisieux and Mother Teresa of Calcutta have been described as “two mirrors who mutually reflect each other, one revealing what at first glance is not obvious to the other.” The author, Jacques Gauthier, stresses those areas of … [Read more...]