View of Jersualm from Mt. Scopes I never really considered going to the Holy Land. It was always a far away place that I figured I would make it to sometime – maybe. Before my conversion I did not consider going because it just was not the place to travel if you do not have sufficient motivation. And after my conversion, it just seemed like too much, like something that I should put off as much as possible in much the same... Read more
All joy…emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings. – C.S. Lewis Overnight Jesus turns our sorrow into joy, and like the apostles we can hardly believe it. We almost want to return to the darkness because we know it and it is comfortable. How do we celebrate this momentous anniversary of God rising from the dead to save us from our sins? We dress up in white, adorn the churches in lilies and... Read more
They gave him wine to drink mixed with gall, which he tasted but refused to drink. – Matthew 27:34 When Jesus died on the cross, he gave everything he had and suffered all that he could suffer, he did not even accept wine to dull the pain. Jesus was like a mother giving birth to salvation without an epidural. He did not die on the cross like a smiling Buddha or an ecstatic martyr. He denied himself his own grace... Read more
Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. – Blessed JP II We are nearing the Holy Triduum, when we remember in a special way the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. We live in a culture where very little is considered a sin, if we even use that word at all anymore. In some churches I have noticed pastors completely avoid the... Read more
Lent is a great time to take advantage of the gift we have in the sacrament of Reconciliation. We can prepare our souls through reconciliation by increasing the grace of Baptism or reigniting the fire of the Holy Spirit if we have committed mortal sin. Reconciliation allows us to begin again in Christ. It is the very death of Christ that gave us the beautiful graces of this sacrament. The forgiveness of sins and the grace that comes from Jesus’... Read more
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. – Matthew 23:27 I am leading a book club with one of the other postulants on Graham Greene’s classic The Power and the Glory. The main character is a priest who is running for his life during the persecutions that religious endured after the 1910 revolution in Mexico.... Read more
Remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return. – Genesis 3:19 When I was discerning religious life, God shared with me a moment of grace that helped me to put things into perspective. I was visiting a religious congregation in California and as I walked around the grounds of the convent alone, I stumbled on the cemetery where their sisters are laid to rest. The sisters were buried with their gravestones facing each other as if they... Read more
Death, the greatest evil that humans can ever experience came to my grandmother Nancy last afternoon. When I heard earlier this week that she was dying I went to the chapel. I did not know where else to go. Some may expect a person who is entering religious life to piously thank God for the passage of a beloved family member into eternal life but this was not my response. Deep grief and intense pain was all I felt. As... Read more
Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son’s is another, the Holy Spirit’s another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one. – The Athanasius Creed The Trinity has been the focus of my studies recently in class and in life. But I realized today that my... Read more
Our Lenten readings begin with the temptation of Jesus in the desert. In the video below, Fr. Barron discusses how we are tempted in much the same ways that Jesus was: “The devil tries to order our lives toward something other than our Creator….” We are all meant to enter the desert with Jesus during Lent and confront the ways that the devil is tempting us to center our lives on something other than God. C.S. Lewis’ book, The... Read more
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