This paper was written in preparation for a talk at the 2006 Saint Benedict Center Conference. My talk — which was not a mere reading of the paper — is available on CD and MP3. The conference’s theme was “Catholic … Continue reading
Category: Spiritual Life
Honoring the First Amerindian Saint
Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha is scheduled to be canonized on October 21, 2012. Less than a month before that, she will be honored by the pilgrims walking the annual “Pilgrimage for Restoration” to Auriesville, New York. Below, I reproduce a press … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
Saint Augustine on Prayer
By the grace of God, your humble servant has recently completed his week-long Lenten retreat, which was followed immediately by the perpetual profession of two of our sisters on Passion Sunday, and today’s joyful Feast of the Annunciation. During my … Continue reading
Lenten Transfiguration
Christians are by grace what Christ is by nature. That is to say, the members of Christ’s Body (the Catholic Church) are deified so that we, too, can be called sons of God. By grace, we are so identified with … Continue reading
Guilt Transformed, Some Lenten Thoughts
The solemn fast of Lent is intended to convert us, to renew us, and to conform us more and more to Jesus Christ. This happens through the three means of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving — which are most powerful when … Continue reading
Penance and the Conversion of America
Lent is on its way. During this penitential season of grace, the Church’s liturgy will put sentiments of penance on our lips and in our minds. She will also enjoin us, in various ways, to do works of penance. In … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
What We Have Seen and Heard
The true religion is not a book. It is a communion — a mystical body — by which man is united to God and therefore made holy, beginning in this life a relationship that is meant to continue for all … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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.
The Trinity and the Efficacy of Marian Consecration
On June 13, 1929, Sister Lucy of Fatima, while yet a Dorothean Sister, was privileged with a vision of the Most Holy Trinity. The vision happened in the convent chapel in Tuy, Spain. The Blessed Trinity appeared, with the Virgin … Continue reading
