To love as a person is freely to wish goodness for someone ... Love always wants to affirm, and to better, one’s friend. Through the power of free choice, true love makes the friend, not the self, the beneficiary. Can there be a more … [Read more...]
Articles
The Giver and the Gift
June 26, 2014 by Fr. Charles Kestermeier, SJ
God is himself the first, and absolutely the most important gift that God gives to us, which implies a second gift: God gives us our very selves. One thing that people seem to do in all cultures is to give gifts, and this is always … [Read more...]
The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help for Priests
June 26, 2014 by Rev. Edward Lee Looney, STB, MDiv
The message the Queen of Heaven gave to Adele Brise in 1859 was mission-oriented and provides a focus to the Church’s efforts of evangelization. The conversation between Adele and Our Lady is quite telling, emphasizing a two-fold dimension: … [Read more...]
Memory: Wired for God in the Eucharist
June 26, 2014 by Dr. Joseph R. Hollcraft
So, as we reflect on the principle of memory, we are drawn into what lies at the center of it all, Christ and his words in the institution of the Eucharist: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor.15:25). No Ordinary Pil … [Read more...]
The Understanding of Revelation in “Dei Verbum” and the Response of Faith
June 11, 2014 by Thomas Gourlay
While this notion of revelation, understood as the manifestation of ... Christ himself, has been with the Church since the very beginning. There have been many confusions and reductions over time that have altered the very essence of the … [Read more...]
Giving Our Grief over to the “Man Acquainted with Grief”
June 11, 2014 by Deacon James Keating
With the coming of Christ into the depths of all things human, we now know that even our grief can be given over to the good God ... All losses can become places of life, places of intimacy with Christ, if we show him these wounds caused by … [Read more...]
Object-Images, Ego Formation, and Personal Identity: A Christ-Centered Approach
June 11, 2014 by Patrick F. Cioni
(This article is) an attempt to provide an understanding of object-images and ego formation, as essential elements of personal identity, laying the foundation for understanding of identity formation in Christ Jesus. An answer to the … [Read more...]
Believing in the Justice of the Cross: Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega of Faith
June 11, 2014 by Fr. Lorenzo Rossetti
Adhering with love to the Lord, Victim and Priest, Obedient and Merciful, we embrace him in the real and veiled presence of the broken Bread, and we celebrate the victory against evil, sin, and death. This essay focuses on the … [Read more...]
“Nuclear fission in the…heart of being”: The Eucharist as the Sacrament of Transformations in the Teaching of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
June 11, 2014 by Fr. Donncha Ó. hAodha
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s use of the image of nuclear fission—...in a positive sense, in order to explain the Eucharistic mystery—is contemporary and striking, and apt to convey the quiet, but immense, power of the Mass. The Sacra … [Read more...]
Ora et Labora … and Vacation??
June 11, 2014 by Sr. M. Regina van den Berg, FSGM
Religious ... are joined to Christ in his poverty, chastity, and obedience by a “total life-long gift of themselves.” For the consecrated religious, then, times of rest are to serve the total gift of self, as the gift is expressed both in … [Read more...]
Come, Holy Spirit!
June 8, 2014 by David Vincent Meconi
Feast of Pentecost, June 2014 Sequence – Veni, Sancte Spiritus Come, Holy Spirit, come! And from your celestial home Shed a ray of light divine! Come, Father of the poor! Come, source of all our store! Come, within our bosoms sh … [Read more...]
John Paul II Brightens the Earth with His Holiness and Truth
May 24, 2014 by Fr. Zbigniew Tyburski, PhD
Engaged so deeply in earthly human affairs and believing in each persons’ goodness, John Paul seems to be calling us from heaven with a special request for solidarity of those who live on earth, and those living, though yet unborn. … [Read more...]
Beauty and Biblical Interpretation: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Response to Modern Biblical Studies
May 24, 2014 by Luke Murray
Key to Balthasar’s response to modern biblical studies is his concept of beauty ... Balthasar links beauty to human perception, and the way human beings gain knowledge. Over the past 100 years—amidst the confusion and darkness sur … [Read more...]
The Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary: Detecting a Pattern of Internal Consistency
May 24, 2014 by Jayson M. Brunelle, MEd, CAGS
Against the background of the words, Ave Maria, the principal events of the life of Jesus Christ pass before the eyes of the soul. They take shape in the complete series of the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries, and they put us in … [Read more...]
The Virgin Birth, Perpetual Virginity, and NFP
May 23, 2014 by Deacon W. Patrick Cunningham
...we need to look back at the reign of Joseph’s direct ancestor, the great King David ... (which) will help us understand that Mary was ... the lifelong Spouse of the Holy Spirit, and that Joseph was her protector, but not her sexual p … [Read more...]
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