Daily Reflections
Blessed be the little child, who trusts in God wholeheartedly. We make things too complicated. We are the ones who fall away from grace. We are the ones who have shown God the way out. We bar him from our souls. God wants us to come closer to him in grace. He won’t force…
Continue ReadingThomas Aquinas is a Doctor of the Church and is considered one of the greatest Christian theologians who ever put pen to paper. You would not have known that from his early story though. He came from a noble family who wanted him to be an Abbot in a royal monastery. He chose to…
Continue ReadingAugustine of Hippo is a consummate example of a restless heart. His writing of the Confessions literally set a course for Christianity for ages to come. I thought I would get tired of hearing about Augustine’s Confessions one day after I started reading it. I have come back to the Confessions again and again,…
Continue ReadingPrologue: In this week’s presentations, I want to focus on the mystagogy of faith in the spiritual life. In this sense of the Christian spiritual life, the focus is on the mystical elements of God’s presence and how people receive the divine presence in their lives on a personal level. Mysticism is complimentary to knowledge…
Continue ReadingYesterday we were talking about the conversion process consisting of three movements: invitation, listening, and response. Today we can zoom in on a very powerful conversion story. One could hardly find a more compelling story of conversion than the story of St. Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles. His was a story of extremes. The…
Continue ReadingThe thought of Jesus calling a diverse group of a dozen men together to follow him, learn from him, and then take his challenging teaching to the ends of the known world raises a huge question. How could such a small, motley crew be expected to do so much? Surely this had to be…
Continue Reading“Success is within your reach if you want it!” This is often the message of the self-assured 18-year-old high school valedictorian as he or she exhorts their graduating class. What is success? Is it the talented athlete or the business executive signing the multi-million dollar contract? Some would say you’ve found success when it’s…
Continue ReadingIn so many ways the story of creation in the Book of Genesis unfolds like a progressive symphony. It reaches its climax when God creates man and woman and declares it to be “Very Good!” This ancient wisdom story highlights every aspect of creation and indicates that creation has purpose and value simply because…
Continue ReadingModern popular culture seems to have a high regard for brute force. We see it in action movies where conflicts of whatever kind are usually resolved through extreme fighting and destruction of property and human lives, often in fiery crashes and explosions. The popular attitude seems to assume that every conflict contains a “win-lose”…
Continue ReadingYesterday we explored some thoughts about searching for what is truly wonderful in our life. The effort to discover the good and wonderful will also uncover the reality of our weaknesses and sins. Which of the two categories should capture our close attention? Perhaps the Scripture readings for today can shed some light on…
Continue ReadingSome things naturally go together. Notice how our Sunday liturgical readings form a wonderfully combined chorus of Isaiah celebrating the blessings of God on the People of God, St. Paul celebrating the special gifts of every person, and Jesus with his mother’s gentle encouragement coming to the rescue for the bride and groom on…
Continue ReadingWe often find ourselves asking why. Sometimes, the question is innocent and leads us to discover: Why do the seasons change? At other times, the question comes from pain: Why do bad things happen to me? And sometimes, the question is a statement of judgment: Why would you do something like that? The Scribes and Pharisees were judging Jesus for…
Continue ReadingSt. Anthony was one of the first Christians to embrace the monastic life as a way of removing anything in his life that did not draw him closer to God. He gave up his material possessions and practiced great penances so that the temptations of the world would hold no power over him. One…
Continue ReadingLeprosy was not only a painful illness in the ancient world but also a communal affliction because its victims were excluded from normal society. It was so dangerous and so contagious that those who had it were forced to keep their distance from others in case they should infect someone by accident. Only in…
Continue ReadingOur lives are fragile. We have bodies that can be harmed, that grow old, and that will eventually fail. All the same, our bodies are gifts. We experience the many wonderful things God has made in this world through our bodies, and even the pains we undergo reveal the greater truths of the world,…
Continue ReadingJesus wastes no time once he begins his public ministry. The time has come for him to reveal himself to the people in word and deed, which is made evident when he preaches with authority and drives out demons. The great scholars of the time would always refer to the teachings of their predecessors,…
Continue ReadingAt Jesus’ baptism, we hear the Father announcing his Sonship. Jesus is loved by the Father because the Father is love. Jesus is even the expression of this love because he has come among us and offered himself for us even though we are unworthy of him. His Incarnation reveals to us the lengths…
Continue ReadingNow that the Christmas season has concluded, we return to the “ordinary” life of Jesus, the public ministry he performed as an adult before his sacrifice on the cross. In the Gospel today, Jesus calls his first disciples to come and follow him. It is an invitation to know him more deeply and, eventually,…
Continue Reading“We know that anyone begotten by God does not sin; but the one begotten by God he protects, and the Evil One cannot touch him.” What does this saying mean for us Christians who profess faith in the one true God and His Son who brings us salvation? To be honest, at first glance,…
Continue ReadingIn today’s Gospel, I am struck by the story of the man full of leprosy. He sees Jesus coming and falls prostrate and cries out to him, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” It is his faith in Jesus that gives him the courage to cry out to him. Jesus’ response…
Continue Reading“Beloved, we love God because he first loved us.” These words from the first reading remind us that all we have is from God, even our ability to desire and love our Heavenly Father. We are created in the image and likeness of God and therefore are created in the image of His eternal…
Continue Reading“No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is brought to perfection in us.” Today we see one of the ways that God is revealed to us. It is through a radical love for each other that we come to an encounter with…
Continue ReadingIn today’s gospel, notice how we are both fed by Jesus and are called to feed those in need. Jesus sees the vast crowds coming to see him and his divine heart is move to piety for them because he knows their desire for the word of God and that they are seeking a…
Continue ReadingIn today’s first reading from the first letter of St. John, we hear that, “We receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.” Upon reading this, the first thing that may come to mind is that we can get whatever we want as long as we…
Continue Reading “We celebrate a holy day adorned by three miracles: this day, a star led the Magi to the manger; this day, water was changed into wine at the marriage feast; this day Christ, for our salvation, willed to be baptized by John in the Jordan, Alleluia.” This Antiphon, which is chanted by…
Continue Reading“What are you looking for?” St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was born into an Episcopalian family in thoroughly Protestant society of the early United States. Accompanying her husband on a work trip to Italy, her husband died. Staying with a Catholic family during her period of mourning, she observed their piety even while she continued…
Continue ReadingThe late Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, confounded many with his philosophical distinction between different kinds of national intelligence issues. There were, he said, known knowns – those things we understand exist – and there are also unknown unknowns – things we are neither aware of nor understand. There are also unknown knowns. This…
Continue ReadingIn the movie 500 Days of Summer, a woman asks the sad sack protagonist why he became a greeting card writer when he had trained as an architect. He sardonically replied, “I figured, why make something temporary like a building, when I can make something like a greeting card that lasts forever.” The cutting…
Continue ReadingNot many of us have left Mass on Corpus Christi crying out: “Transubstantiation!” Not many of us here have probably ever left the Feast of Christ the King to shout: “Viva Cristo Rey!” Yet in the year 431 after the Council of Ephesus, the common folk of that city ran through the streets in…
Continue ReadingAs we become more technologically advanced the less we think about times and seasons. Even farmers who are tied to land and weather have found ways to overcome much. Here in the country, farmers’ wives lament that farm implements now have headlights and they plant and harvest without ending when the sun goes down.…
Continue ReadingI find myself jealous of the Evangelists at times—only four men got to write Christ’s story, inspired by the Holy Spirit. When we consider the differences in the gospels, we consider that they were not just chroniclers of facts but also storytellers. In other words, they used details to bring out greater meaning to…
Continue Reading When we imagine the Holy Family, we could imagine an idealized family – the first century version of Leave It to Beaver with unpleasant episodes being nothing more than worrying if Jesus prayed a little too much! The sweetly beautiful paintings and statues of a placid-faced Virgin Mother, wise-beyond-His-years Christ Child, and rock-solid St. Joseph might…
Continue ReadingWhen I was in third grade our house alarm went off in the middle of the night. All the bedrooms were upstairs, and we feared that an intruder had entered the house downstairs. My brothers and I ran to my parents’ bedroom. My Dad went downstairs to investigate. Alone. In the dark. Unarmed. While…
Continue ReadingSt. John is beautifully called, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And, it’s true, Jesus loved John in a special way. In my experience, however, I come across a lot of faithful Christians who do not truly believe that they are loved by God. Because of their sins, past failures, or current struggles in life,…
Continue ReadingSt. Stephen did not die in vain. He witnessed the power and love of Jesus Christ even to the very end, and the Holy Spirit was powerfully at work in him. Those who were stoning Stephen “laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.” The man who would later…
Continue Reading We all want to be home for Christmas and will travel great distances to get there. We monks are happy to be home for Christmas, even though our home is not where our natural family lives but our monastic family. We decorate it similarly, and we have our own set of rituals and…
Continue ReadingOur bad tendency in the spiritual life is to want to do things on our own, separate from God, and we overemphasize our actions and our efforts. But, the problem is that we have focused so much on our action and human progress that we forgot the most basic aspect of our lives before…
Continue ReadingBoth Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous and observed all the commandments of the Lord blamelessly, yet when the angel appeared to Zechariah, he struggled to believe the news spoken to him, and was punished for his doubt. We think of punishment in different ways—as a type of penalty for negative behavior or speech, but…
Continue Reading Mary received the Archangel Gabriel’s message—she received her call that she would be the mother of the Savior of the world. And, what happens shortly after is that—Mary sets out in haste—quickly, with purpose and conviction to visit Elizabeth. Mary, now with child, could have had every legitimate excuse not to make the…
Continue ReadingThis week, we have reflected on the joy of God’s presence, revealed through His transforming work, His faithfulness across generations, His strength in trials, and His surprising ways. Today, we gather all these threads together in the readings, which show us the culmination of joy in the fulfillment of God’s promises. In the Song…
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