Category Archives: Spiritual Life
Spiritual Life
This category, of course, can cover many topics. We try to limit it in this section to articles that deal with the inner life of the soul elevated by grace or wounded by sin: virtue and vice, heroic Catholic men and women as seen under the light of the particular virtue they exemplified, the cardinal virtues, spiritual formation, growth, and purgation, and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
Saint Augustine on Friendship
Thanks to Scribd, we now have a better way of posting PDF files on Catholicism.org. As a “test run,” I’m posting an older piece, a paper on St. Augustine’s notions of Christian friendship. It has become one of the more popular pieces on the Internet on the subject. This paper was written in preparation for a talk at the 2006 Saint Benedict Center Conference. My … More →
Posted in Articles, Catholic Living, Lives of the Saints, Patrology, Spiritual Life Leave a comment
Auriesville Pilgrimage for Restoration Mixes Tradition, Vitality
The 2012 annual Pilgrimage for Restoration is scheduled for Friday-Sunday, September 28-30. This will mark the seventeenth time that a merry band of Catholic pilgrims cuts a path from Lake George to Auriesville, New York, doing penance all the way. This year’s theme, in honor of the soon-to-be-canonized Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, is “Restoration of True Devotion to Mary, in the footsteps of Saint Kateri.” Rising very … More →
Suggested Lenten Penances
The best penances are those that God sends us. These penances are immediately consequent upon His “will signified,” that is, the natural moral law and any positive law to which we are bound in conscience, e.g., the Church’s laws on fast and abstinence, or the rule of a religious congregation. They are also consequent upon God’s “will of good pleasure,” which we see in the … More →
Posted in Articles, Mass and the Liturgy, Morals, Spiritual Life Leave a comment
Fr. Thomas Keating on NPR: Heresy as Mysticism
Saturday, December 24. I went to Keene, N.H. to run errands. On the way, I said a chaplet of the Rosary. While carrying out my errands and on the trip back, I clicked on the local NPR affiliate to see if there was any news worth hearing. It would have been better had I prayed more chaplets of the Rosary.
Eucharistic Adoration Growing Devotion in Lebanon
A group of Lebanese lay Catholics have formed a group called New Creation, with the objective of fostering devotion to Jesus. They took their name from a phrase in the Second Letter to the Corinthians: “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation,” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Read more here.
Posted in Catholic Living, News, Sacraments, Spiritual Life Leave a comment
The Story We Live By and the Foundations of Our Faith: Implications of the Incarnation and of the Bethlehem Nativity
[Originally authored 13 December 2003, the Feast of Sancta Lucia] At this time of the Christian Feast of the Nativity, when we are also expectantly considering the coming year of 2012 (as was so in 2003) and the pressures of deepening war and religious conflict, we more openly allow ourselves to consider the foundations of things. Did the Incarnation happen? Or was it an illusion, … More →
Supernaturally Pro-Life Meditations
As something of a follow-up to The Real Gospel of Life, I compiled a small collection of supernaturally pro-life statements that have the authority of Holy Scripture or the Church’s Liturgy. These will help us establish our pro-life priorities, and provide us with abundant material for meditation.
Holy Father Urges Faithful to Pray the Psalms and Get Familiar With the Liturgy of the Hours
General Audience, Father Z’s site: “I would like to renew my call to everyone to pray the Psalms, to become accustomed to using the Liturgy of the Hours, Lauds, Vespers, and Compline.” Read more from the pope’s address here.
