Upbuild, Encourage, and Console: On Becoming a More Prophetic Church

I have a personal motto, one that unfortunately I don’t always follow: don’t read the comments! I am referring to the comments that often accompany posts on Facebook, or blogs, or other social media. My reason for avoiding them is to avoid t … [Read more...]

On Becoming A Joyful People

In Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis expresses his desire for spirit-filled evangelizers, ones who are full of “fervor, joy, generosity, courage, boundless love and attraction,” people who are eager to enter into an eva … [Read more...]

The Spirit of Truth

The Holy Spirit’s Role in a Deeper Understanding of Revelation

Jesus, who identified himself as the truth (Jn 14:6), indicated that it was “to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you” (Jn 16:7). Indeed, Christ promised to pray to the Father to send ano … [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...]

Pentecostal Suffering and Our Growth in Holiness

The seasons of Lent and Easter help us understand the priesthood if we begin at the end. Easter season ends with Pentecost, so that’s where we’ll begin. Recall the story of Pentecost: Everyone from various countries all understood the same l … [Read more...]

Sanctuary

Sanctuary is like a singularly beautiful flower in a vast garden of words. It comes in varieties ranging from a place where we are safe from harm to an interior region of the heart where God dwells. “Sanctuary” originates from the Latin roo … [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...]

Deacons as Apostles for the New Evangelization

“Whoever believes that Christ the Lord is the way, the truth and the life, whoever knows that the Church is his continuation in history, whoever has a personal experience of all this cannot fail, for this very reason, to become fervently m … [Read more...]

Confirmation in the Church Fathers

It has been said — though I know not by whom — that Confirmation is “a sacrament in search of a theology.” Confirmation preparation programs often emphasize the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and state that Confirmation, in some way, complet … [Read more...]

Answers Concerning the Charism of Healing

The recent article by my colleague Phil Blosser, “Questions Concerning the Charism of Healing,” gives me an opportunity to address the misconceptions, concerns, and fears that many Catholics have about prayer for healing and about the cha … [Read more...]

Questions Concerning the Charism of Healing

An Amicus Brief

In her recent book, Healing: Bringing the Gift of God’s Mercy to the World (Our Sunday Visitor, 2015), biblical theologian and popular speaker Mary Healy addresses with great passion the issue of healing — particularly the charism of hea … [Read more...]

The Church Needs the Holy Spirit!

It is notable—important—that the preaching of John the Baptist, in his crucial preparation of the coming of the Messiah, and the preaching of Christ Jesus Himself, both began with the message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” … [Read more...]

Life in the Spirit

God is Spirit God, in whom we live and move and have our being, is Spirit. We do not, and cannot, exist apart from God; for we are the created effects of the uncreated Cause that is effecting our existence. Our cognitive-affective … [Read more...]

The Curse of Crying and the Gift of Tears in The Confessions

Tears manifest the reality of the finitude of man. Tears are most often an expression of being overwhelmed by passion. They can be consented to, embraced, wallowed in, squelched, or avoided. Tears are a silent confession of man’s own r … [Read more...]

The Holy Spirit and the Contemporary Reform of the Catholic Church

Status Quaestionis Ecclesia semper reformanda est (The Church is always to be reformed). This phrase originated in the Nadere Reformatiae of the Dutch Reform during the 1600s, and first appeared in the 1674 work, Beschouwinge van Zion … [Read more...]