Come Away By Yourselves: Recent Episodes
Fr. John Grieco
"Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while." These words of Jesus Christ are an invitation to personal and intimate prayer. The meditations offered in this podcast are intended to help the listener enter into his own prayerful relationship with God. By reflecting on scenes from the Gospel, on other passages from Scripture, and on the insights of saints and spiritual writers, we can strengthen our faith in Jesus and our love for God. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "I have called you my friends." By regular meditation and dialogue with Our Lord in prayer, our life can be transformed into an ever deepening and loving friendship with God.
Gratitude is a very important Christian disposition. God appreciates gratitude, as we all do. One of the four basic acts of prayer, gratitude should be a constant state of mind and heart. In addition to pleasing God, it also brings the soul joy and peace.
This Sunday's readings show as God as a generous provider. In the book of Isaiah, God invites the people to come to him for their food and drink. In the Gospel, Jesus feeds the crowds with the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fish. God's providence is something we are called to place great trust in, especially when times are hard.
"He who loves his life will lose it, he who loses his life for my sake will find it." Finding our true life, and our true selves, means handing ourselves over to Christ. Losing our lives for the sake of Christ is a transformative union with him. This takes work and an acceptance of suffering. There is no resurrection of ourselves in Christ without the cross.
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Jesus doesn't just have compassion on others, he discovers motives for his compassion. Understanding others is an essential ingredient in loving them. This takes humility, patience, and the rejection of an evil, critical spirit.
Jesus' victory over sin is a great cause of joy in heaven and on earth. This victory only happens, however, insofar as sin is recognized and repented of. Paradoxically, therefore, the sorrow of contrition for our sins is simultaneously a great motive for joy at our reconciliation with God. Sorrow for sin lets Jesus' victory be won in us and thus makes of us fertile grounds for joy and celebration.
Sin and evil are real. They are not playing games. To defeat them and be disciples of Christ, we need to take our Christian life very seriously. This takes resolute, decisive choices and clear thinking about good and evil, virtue and vice, love and betrayal.
Jesus's presence in the Blessed Sacrament affords us a wonderful opportunity. Just as we spend time with friends and loved ones just to be with them, our mental prayer is an occasion of simply being present with Jesus. Jesus did this during his earthly life with various groups and individuals. They cherished these days and hours alone with their Friend, Lord, and Teacher. We can do the same in our prayer life.
This Sunday's readings remind us of so many important realities. We are God's people and precious to him. He has loved us in our sinfulness, before we merited any goodwill on his behalf. We are an apostolic Church chosen by name and invested with power to do good and proclaim the Gospel. Our ordinary lives are actually quite extraordinary!
The Sacred Heart of Jesus is more than a symbol. Jesus truly loves us with his heart. This love is fully human: emotional, warm, tender, encouraging. This love is fully divine: all powerful, infinite, eternal. To appreciate this love we need to live in it and pray about it. Let's "enter into the Sacred Heart of Jesus," as saints and Popes alike have encouraged us. There we find new strength for our own love of God and others.
On the Feast of Corpus Christi the Church turns her heart to Jesus's real presence in the Blessed Sacrament. A marvel of love, in the Eucharist the infinite enters the finite, the Creator his creation and the invisible the visible real. Adoration, devotion, and gratitude should mark our response to this great mystery of our Faith.
The Bible often encourages us to a silent, receptive stance before God's reality and goodness. This kind of prayer takes recollection or composure of heart, which in turn requires some trust in God. Our distaste for quiet prayer can be rooted in an unwillingness to cede control or a fear of the changes it might provoke in us. Jesus's advice to the busy Martha is pertinent for all times: "Mary has chosen the better part." Although our lives are rightly busy, we should also play the role of Mary--quietly listening to Jesus--and we can do this by learning how to pray in silence.
The Holy Spirit is God's gift to us. The Spirit dwells within each one of us in the state of grace. We should ask him for help and rely on his presence especially to live the virtue of charity. The fruits of the Spirit are the indications of his activity in our life.
"This is eternal life, that they know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." These words of Jesus reveal the importance of coming to know God more and more. We grow in this knowledge in various ways: study and spiritual reading, personal dealings with Him in our prayer life, living in HIs presence. To know Jesus fully, however, we also have to enter into his own experience of loving and trusting God in and through the trials of our life.
As we celebrate Mother's Day in the month of May, our minds and hearts naturally go to our Heavenly Mother, Mary. Devotion to Our Lady should be natural and heartful, as is our devotion to our own mothers. Mary is a great ally in the Christian life and May, Mary's month, is a great time to increase our love for her and our dependence on her intercession .
St. Peter says we are a priestly people who offer spiritual sacrifices to God. What does it mean to have a "priestly soul"? How can we make our hearts altars of a burning love of God? How can we be mediators and peacemakers between God and men?
The image of our Lord as Good Shepherd is a challenging one. It means that we Christians are sheep. Our pride and self-sufficiency naturally bristle at this image. Only with deep humility, and contemplating Jesus the Lamb of God, can we embrace being sheep and having a Shepherd.
The two disciples' encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus teaches us so much about prayer and faith. Jesus walks with us whether we realize it or not. He is interested in what is happening in our lives and also in how it affects us. His presence in the dialogue of prayer, in the Eucharist and in Scripture should be places where we regularly seek his companionship and counsel.
When he appears to his apostles on Easter Sunday, Jesus's first and consistent message to them is one of peace. The very presence of Jesus brings us peace as it did the fearful Apostles. Union with the person of Christ is also another source of peace. This is promised to us by Jesus himself, "Peace I leave you, my peace I give to you." Trust in God, especially in God's mercy, is a key to receiving this peace from Christ.
Lent is over and with it comes the expectation of Easter Joy. Holy Saturday invites us to anticipate the joy and wonder of the Resurrection of Jesus. The Resurrection is a powerful reality that continues to give life and joy to the world and especially the Church.
As we enter Holy Week, we can ponder Jesus's fundamental motivation. Whether growing up in Nazareth or preaching throughout Galilee and Judea, whether acclaimed by the crowds or nailed to the Cross, Jesus is always doing one thing: fulfilling his Father's will. This is at the crux of our own identity as sons and daughters of God in Christ
Jesus's death on the cross is the supreme revelation of God's love. St. Paul tells us that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ. Christ's death shows us how much he loves us and what the Father's love for Him, and for us, is like. This is a reliable love, upon which we can firmly plant all of our problems and our whole life. The cross fills us with confidence in God and our own crosses are a sign of God's confidence in us.
In saving us from sin Jesus does more than relieve us of an unpayable debt. He actually pays the debt himself. He buys us back, redeems us, with the price of his precious blood. The wounds of Christ are thus mysterious sources of confidence and consolation for us, worthy of our continual contemplation.
To pray is "to lift up our minds and hearts to God." Often, however, we lose a proper sense of the grandeur and awesome nature of God. Routine makes us used to prayer and God becomes something taken for granted, ordinary, and even boring. Reflecting on God's power and transcendence can spark us to a renewed love for him and new horizons in our prayer life.
Jesus gives two clear conditions for following him: deny yourself and take up your cross each day. Lent is a clear invitation and opportunity to do this.
Lent is a wonderful opportunity to find our peace, joy, and comfort in God. We do this by denying ourselves our usual sources of support, distraction, and pleasure. To be filled by God is to run the risk of emptying ourselves out of other things. This takes trust, courage and patience. God always responds to this kind of personal faith, even when it is imperfect and needs to grow.
Jesus's time in the desert fasting and praying are a model for how to live Lent well. If we understand the opportunity that Lent presents us, we will be more engaged and committed in our Lenten practices. This will yield great fruits in our interior life.
Jesus has high hopes for his Church in the world. We are to be salt and light, giving flavor, endurance, guidance and inspiration to the rest of the world. This takes a daily fight against our easy-going lukewarmness and a magnanimity of heart that moves us to serve and give good example to others.
Today we reflect on a unique feast day in the Church, the Conversion of St. Paul. Paul's conversion shows God's initiative in our lives and the great changes grace can work in a soul. St. Paul responds to God's entrance into his life in a powerful and exemplary way. His willingness to suffer for Christ reveals the depth of his love for God.
This episode is a joint effort with "Sons and Kings" a new podcast on Psalm 2. Jake Jakubisin interviews Fr. John Grieco about Psalm 2 and the Christian view of Human Nature.
Listen to "Sons and Kings":
https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/sons-kings-the-psalm-2-show/id1863578222
https://open.spotify.com/show/2P7KxJ2ILJD1MCd0Qlbfq3
The Sermon on the Mount is at the heart of Jesus's preaching the Kingdom of God. Jesus presents us with a demanding challenge to live a truly holy life. At the same time, however, he assures us of God the Father's love and constant care.
The Baptism of Jesus speaks to us of his incredible humility. Without being a sinner, Jesus plays the role of one by letting himself be baptized by John the Baptist. Humility unlocks our ability to love God and others. It protects our peace and joy.
The Magi follow the light of a star to reach Bethlehem and worship Christ. We too must be aware of the lights that God sends us to bring us closer to Jesus. These lights vary in nature and appearance. To be constant in following the light that is Christ, we also need to be aware of other lights that could lead us away from Him.
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Christmas puts before us the Virgin Mary loving and caring for her Divine Son. It's a scene that we can enter into in our prayer and in our life. Jesus says that we too are "his mother" insofar as we do God's will. God allows Mary and all of us to love him in the Christ child just as He has always loved us: with a mother's heart. Christmas is a time to begin life again with a newfound trust in the goodness of God.
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Closing in on Christmas we contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation. Mary's humility and openness to God's plan are inspiring and truly mysterious. She offers us a recipe for our own life as Christians: attentiveness in prayer, humility based on contemplating God, and readiness to do His will.
In the Incarnation, the Infinite God becomes finite, limited, even small. The Word is made flesh and begins his earthly life as an infant, as a little thing. In the spiritual life, little things are also a dwelling place of God. Little deeds, ordinary tasks, and everyday moments are all opportunities for us "to seek Christ, to find Christ, to love Christ", who is present but hidden in each circumstance.
Advent is essentially a time of preparation. To prepare for Jesus is to make our souls and lives more welcoming places for him to arrive. This entails conversion, confession, a real change of heart and mind. The changes that Jesus can bring about in our lives and in the world are truly incredible. To let him do this, we need to be on board with the program.
Advent is a time of patience and hope. Both of these virtues entail waiting. Waiting for God is sometimes very difficult, especially in trying situations. Our faith in Jesus, who is God with us and faithful to his promises, bolsters our ability to wait for him with joyful hope. Our faith overcomes the tribulation of the world and even makes us peaceful in the face of possible persecution.
Christ's supreme manifestation as King will come when he returns to judge the living and the dead. Until then, we have to remain patient with his will for us. Jesus uses his power to serve others and he hides his power in order to suffer for sin. At times, we might naturally wish for him to establish his kingdom sooner, putting an end to evil and suffering. But we should always trust in his plan for our holiness and redemption, which is that we follow the longer and slower path that he himself followed.
Jesus often calls us to vigilance. We know neither the time nor the hour of his second coming and the time of our own death is certain but unknown to us. The best preparation for our judgment is found in discerning and doing the will of God.
Our Faith should give us great confidence in God. Waiting around for a feeling of confidence, however, rarely ever works. Rather we should treat our Faith more like the robust Truth that it is. Faith is just true, whether we feel like it is or not. This feeling dependent view of faith ends up filling us with the courage and confidence that we need and want.
On the Feast of All Saints we reflect on what makes saints holy. God's gift of divine filiation is at the core of sanctity. As children of God, the saints experience a freedom that was and is Christ's own liberty. We pray for a greater desire to be like them on earth so we can be with them in heaven.
The question of our personal identity is crucial to life. Our identity is tied to our closest relationships and our life’s mission. The deepest truth of who we are, however, is something we find in God and receive from Him, not something we have to figure out entirely on our own. By living the life God wants for us, we become our true selves and discover our true names.
Moses struggles on a hilltop to keep his hands up in prayer while a battle rages down on the field. The fight's outcome depends on Moses' effort in prayer. Our prayers also make a real difference in the lives of others and of the world. Inspired by Scripture, which is living and active, our time in prayer gives new life to our ordinary tasks and interactions.
Jesus heals ten lepers but only one comes back to thank him. An image of sin, their leprosy is cured when they are on the way to see "the priests." Jesus appreciates the gratitude of the Samaritan who returned after being cured and finds fault with the other nine. Constant gratitude is a way of loving our Lord and of assuring our own increase in saving faith.
The Sermon on the Mount is the core of Jesus's teaching on how to live with faith. At once challenging and comforting, Jesus's vision of faith calls us to a radical dependence on God and detachment from all other goods. At the heart of faith is an unshakable trust in God's infinite love for us. This conviction frees us to live without fear and to strive for virtue without anxiety. To have a living faith, however, takes personal prayer: times in which we apply the basic truths of our faith in God to the concrete circumstances and concerns of our current lives.
Jesus' parable of the talents is an image of Christian life. God has invested a lot in each one of us. Like the servants who eagerly trade with their talents to make them fruitful, we want to accept all the opportunities and challenges that our Lord has entrusted to us. Too often it is easy to resent life, focusing only on the difficulties, and end up like the third servant who buries his talent out of laziness and fear.
St. Paul expresses God's intent that "all men be saved." In his providence, God counts on his apostolic Church to fulfill this divine desire. He is always looking for "laborers" for the vineyard. The parable of the unjust steward reminds us to be grateful guardians of God's gifts and to be shrewd in pursuing our noble ends.
Christ's Triumph on the Cross defeated sin and death. It was a triumph of love over selfishness. This victory needs to be repeated in our own lives, in our own carrying of the Cross. Sin and selfishness have to be defeated in us and this entails the acceptance of suffering and sacrifice; in a word the acceptance of the Cross. Suffering is inevitable in life, but whether it is redemptive and sanctifying or futile and permanent is truly up to us.
Jesus takes five loaves and two fish from a boy and multiplies them to feed a crowd of thousands. When we trust him, Jesus takes our good will and our meager personal resources and similarly multiplies them to help us and others. Fortunately, faith is something we can grow in by choosing to do so. It is a free human act. By admitting our limitations and weakness and then confidently trying our best to do his will, Jesus makes up the difference between our insufficiency and the great things he wants us to do.
The readings for this Sunday's Mass relate the fruits of humility. Growth in humility is worth the effort. St. Theresa of Avila offers sound advice on how to advance in this essential Christian virtue.
Jesus walks on water in the midst of a storm. Peter joins him in a great act of daring and trust. This Gospel scene contains lessons of prayer, trust, and union with Christ on the cross.
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Christ expresses his burning desire to "cast fire on the earth." This is a call to an intense Christian life. To be men and women on fire for the love of God and others, we should look out for self-centered and lukewarm habits and mindsets. Prayer, mortification and a generous plan for each day help to ignite the fire of God within us.
By leaving the saving news of the Gospel and the saving power of the sacraments to the Church, Jesus put great things into our hands. The apostolic mission of Christians is an extension of Christ's own love for souls. Apostolate, evangelization, becomes natural when we remember, or realize in a deeper way, just how much Christ means to us.
To follow Jesus is to take up our cross each day. Pain, sadness, fear and suffering were all a part of Christ's life and essential to his redemptive love for us. To follow Jesus in love is therefore also to share in his suffering. Our faith helps us to find meaning and solace in our most difficult trials.
Jesus is the "light of the world" who gives us the "light of life." Christian life is a process of continual identification with Christ. The effort to do this is not just behavioral modification but, perhaps more fundamentally, intellectual conversion. To convert is to see things as Christ does, to come to have "the mind of Christ" as St. Paul puts it. This is our defense against the "wiles of the devil" and a key to sharing in Christ's love.
Jesus gives us very clear advice on how to deal with worries and anxieties. His advice is to replace worry with trust. This replacement therapy is something we can practice first of all in our mental prayer.
The Psalms and other Bible passages are full of encouraging claims about who and what God is for us. The Lord is our rock, our stronghold, our inheritance ... Faith makes these claims come to life. To be all that he wants to be for us, we must try to let God be our one and true God, whom we love with all of our soul, all of our heart and all of our mind.
On the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, we reflect on St. Peter's love for Jesus. Compatible with his weaknesses, Peter is a model of perseverance, closeness to Christ, and the love sorrow of contrition.
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Jesus describes his sacred and merciful heart as meek and humble. More than anger and disappointment at our sins, Jesus feels compassion for us in our waywardness. In the Sacred Heart of Jesus we especially see the goodness of God towards sinners. This makes God approachable in Jesus and keeps us from the mistake of trying to be good without him.
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The Feat of Corpus Christi highlights the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. What a great mystery of confidence, consolation and closeness. Knowing that Jesus is truly present should change our way of thinking about him and of relating to him. Above all in communion, the real presence brings us into vital contact with Our Lord.
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The Trinity is the deepest mystery of our Faith, revealing to us the secrets of God's inner life. This mystery transmits to us God's transcendence, his intimacy with us, and the importance of charity in the Christian life.
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The conditions for the fruitful reception of the Holy Spirit seem to be obedience, prayer and unity. The "tongues of fire" which descends on the Apostles lead them and us to the "gift of tongues" in proclaiming the Gospel. The gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit are ours for the taking!
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On the last day of May, we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation. Elizabeth's response to Mary's greeting reveals a beautiful chain of presence, words and responsiveness. Her compliments to Mary on her motherhood and her confidence in God are closely connected. By imitating one of them we also participate spiritually in the other.
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In this month of May, we turn our hearts and minds towards Our Lady. Like a good mother, she can teach us the most important of lessons. Among these, how to prayer better is something we can learn from her example and her life with Jesus.
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"He who eats this bread will live forever." "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him." In the Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus makes wonderful claims about Eucharistic Communion. In Communion, we share in Jesus' resurrection and are intimately united with him. This should change the way we think about Jesus. He is not a merely figure from the past or a distant model to imitate, he is a spiritual force in our lives, a person who is always present with a mind, a will, power, and initiatives. Faith unlocks Jesus' life in our lives, his activity in our activities.
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In St. John's Gospel, Jesus's third appearance happens after a night of fruitless fishing for the apostles. Our Lord's intervention makes up abundantly for the lack of success they had that night. Our lives too are often marked by apparent failure and frustration. Like the apostles, this can be made right by a new encounter with the Risen Christ.
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God's power is especially evident in his mercy. There are no sins that he can't forgive and his mercy waits upon the smallest opening of repentance and sorrow for sin. Receiving God's mercy is also the result of being merciful ourselves. Forgiving others is a condition for being forgiven. Our own forgiveness and mercy make us like our Father God: constant in love and invincible in goodness.
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At the Easter Vigil, the Exultet tells us to rejoice with the joy of Christ's Victory. Easter Joy is triumphant. Christ is a victor and conqueror of sin and death. We share in this victory in the sacraments and in charity. Living a sincere Christian life, we become the resurrection for the world.
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How do we make the most of these Holy Days? Keep Jesus company in his passion and death. To get the most out of Easter, let's try to stay with Jesus from the Last Supper through his death, burial and Resurrection.
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At the Last Supper Jesus opens his heart to the apostles and to us. St. John shares Jesus' own description of the Father's love for us: it is the same love that he has for his only Son, Jesus. If and when we truly believe this, it changes everything and serves as the foundation of our Christian life.
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In today's Gospel Jesus saves the woman caught in adultery from a terrible fate. We can imagine her joy, relief, and love after Jesus's intervention. As sinners saved by Jesus, we are all in the same position. Deep sorrow for sin precedes the great joy of forgiveness in Christ.
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Almsgiving (charity) is one of the three traditional practices of Lent. When preaching about almsgiving, Jesus focuses on purity of intention. We should love others for their sake and for the glory of God. St. Paul paints a portrait of the Christian heart in his letter to the Ephesians. Christian charity is especially imbued with understanding of others and selflessness in service.
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Moses encounters God on Mount Horeb in the burning bush. We do so in our Lenten prayer and penance. The time for conversion, for correspondence to Christ's offer of mercy, is limited. Like the fig tree given just one year more to produce fruit, our life and our Lenten season are passing by.
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Lent is a time of self-denial. The higher, better part of ourselves strives to deny and to master our lower nature. This interior struggle is a necessary condition for Christian life. In emptying ourselves out, especially of our pride, we invite God to enter in.
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David composes Psalm 51 as an extended act of contrition. This follows his being convicted of his sin by the Prophet Nathan. The "Miserere Psalm" can help us enter into Lent well, focussed on bravely recognizing and humbly repenting of our sinful deeds and state.
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"Spes non confudit" -- with these words from St. Paul, Pope Francis invited the Church to celebrate the Jubilee year of 2025. Living Christian hope, firmly based on God's love for us, we can become beacons of hope for many others.
Jesus tells us to pray to have the strength "to stand before the Son of Man." When we die we will be judged by God. This is a hard truth but also a truth that saves us. If we ask God for the courage to see ourselves as we really are now, we will be prepared for our death and God's judgment. Reliance on God's grace, fostering sincerity with ourselves and others, living charity, and regularly examining our conscience are all ways to avoid self-deception and to prepare for our definitive meeting with God.
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"Where are you?" This is God's haunting question to Adam and to fallen humanity. "Here I am!" This is our response to Christ's search and rescue mission on our behalf.
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"To be eucharistic souls" was a great ideal proposed by St. Josemaria. Having our lives and hearts shaped by what we celebrate in the eucharist has various manifestations in our spiritual life. Adoration, receptiveness to God's love, imitating Christ's charity, joy, and thanksgiving are among the characteristics of truly eucharistic souls.
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This week we celebrated the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. Thomas believed that the Crucifix was his greatest book and source of wisdom. Guided by St. Thomas, we too can learn great spiritual lessons of from Christ by contemplating his passion.
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"He who loves his life will lose it, he who loses his life for my sake will find it." Finding our true life, and our true selves, means handing ourselves over to Christ. Losing our lives for the sake of Christ is a transformative union with him. This takes work and an acceptance of suffering. There is no resurrection of ourselves in Christ without the cross.
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Like the apostles themselves, the life of the Christian is a call to be close to Jesus and to go out and spread the Good News. Holiness and apostolate are two sides to the same divine vocation. To be an apostle, however, we have to confront various obstacles which would keep us from sharing Christ with others.
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The Baptism of Jesus speaks to us of his incredible humility. Without being a sinner, Jesus plays the role of one by letting himself be baptized by John the Baptist. Humility unlocks our ability to love God and others. It protects our peace and joy.
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The Feast of the Epiphany invites us to set our on our own journey to find Christ. Christ is the Truth, the light of Life. To find him means to deepen in our understanding and acceptance of the Truth about Him and about ourselves.
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Holiness is God's own will and resolution for us. In calling us to be holy God resolves that we be such. Holiness is the fullness of charity. To respond to our call to holiness, to live this divine resolution, is to learn to love God in himself and in and through all things.
Heading into Christmas we turn our hearts towards the Christ Child. Christ is our great Christmas present from God the Father. Mary and Joseph give him the gifts of their faith, hope and love. These are gifts that we too can give to the Baby Jesus.
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Given as part of a Novena to the Immaculate Conception.
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A reflection given for the Novena to the Immaculate Conception on Mary as "Mother of the Fallen Away."
In Advent we prepare for the coming of the Christ Child at Christmas. Jesus, who found no room in the inn at Bethlehem, can find room in our souls and our lives if we prepare well for his coming. Making room for Jesus means clearing other things out, finding time for prayer, and welcoming him in others.
What is the Kingdom of God and the Kingship of Christ? How can we be loyal subjects of this Kingdom? What keeps us from letting Christ rule as King?
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Jesus encourages us to pray constantly. This advice is seconded by St. Paul and many other saints. Scripture teaches us the many benefits of habitual prayer: joy, motivation, peace and fruitfulness. Prayer is the very shape of Christian life: a sharing of our life with Christ's.
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Prayer was a regular part of Jesus' daily life. We can learn a lot from watching when, how and where he prayed.
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Jesus's parable of the widow and the unjust judge teaches us to pray with persistence and intensity. While always confident that God our Father hears and answers our prayers, we are called to exercise this confidence by patient perseverance in our petitions. "Prayer works." This is a fundamental Gospel truth. Prayer is powerful and others depend on our prayers of intercession for them. Prayer of petition brings us closer to God, by reminding us of our status as his creatures and children.
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After the Rich Young Man goes away sad, Jesus tells his disciples twice that it will be difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. The possession of riches comes with the danger of relying on them too much, seeking our happiness in them, falling into a kind of practical idolatry. The solution to this is detachment or poverty of spirit. Detachment frees our hearts to love God and others.
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When Job sees God he accepts God's plan and submits to his judgment. In this life, our vision of God is always indirect and partial. "We see through a mirror dimly." It takes thus faith to trust in God's plan and his providence especially when things are difficult or go against us. In this life, faith in God's promises substitutes for sight especially in moments when it is hard for us to understand God's ways.
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The reward for charity is great, the punishment for sin is daunting. We live in a battle between good and evil, between joy and misery. Victory in this struggle is not just a matter of effort but of clear spiritual vision.
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Matthew's response to his vocation demonstrates a great deal of trust in Jesus. His Gospel emphasizes Jesus's deep appreciation of faith and his disappointment at its absence. Trust in Jesus should be absolute, lending a great certainty to our faith in his Church and in all of his teachings. "Faith is the evidence of things unseen." This means that at times we will have to trust more in Jesus than in the evidence of our own senses or the apparent evidence of our own judgment.
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Christ's Triumph on the Cross defeated sin and death. It was a triumph of love over selfishness. This victory needs to be repeated in our own lives, in our own carrying of the Cross. Sin and selfishness have to be defeated in us and this entails the acceptance of suffering and sacrifice; in a word the acceptance of the Cross. Suffering is inevitable in life, but whether it is redemptive and sanctifying or futile and permanent is truly up to us.
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Our Faith constantly encourages us to overcome our fears. This entails standing up to them and being open to fearful situations. Christian courage, however, is primarily based on belief in God's powerful presence and protection. With God, "whom shall we fear?"
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St. James describes the word of God has "having been planted in us." This gift of God leads to the growth of His own Life in each Christian. To foster the growth of the word in us we need to remove obstacles and create an environment in which it can flourish.
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St. Bartholomew's first meeting with Jesus is recorded in the Gospel of St. John. Introduced by Philip, Bartholomew is struck by Jesus's already knowing him before they ever met. Jesus is struck in turn by Bartholomew's sincerity, "an Israelite in whom there is no guile." Our own Christian life is a matter of meeting Jesus, finding that he already knows and loves us, and being radically sincere with him so that he can completely forgive and save us.
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Martha invites Jesus into her home along with her sister Mary. Jesus's interaction with them is a great source of insight for us. "The better part" that Mary has chosen, sitting at the feet of Jesus, tells us of the importance of prayer. Jesus's correction of Martha, however, also has to do with her inner attitude of distraction, worry, and resentment. In this sense, Martha can choose the better part, keep working, and maintain her peace and joy.
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Jesus wants his joy to be in us and our joy to be full. Sharing the joy of Jesus means sharing in his victory over sin and death on the cross. Jesus receives a crown of glory and joy in heaven for his triumph. We too will be crowned victors if we persevere joyfully in the Spiritual Olympics of life.
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The "Bread of Life" Discourse in John Chapter 6 is a treasure trove of spiritual insights. Faith in Jesus's person is paramount for the Christian life. This faith is tested by the audacity of his claims for the Eucharist as well as by the trials and difficulties of our personal Christian vocation. Jesus promises spiritual satisfaction, eternal life, and, most amazingly of all, intimate communion with him for those who receive the Bread of Life in the Eucharist.
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Jesus takes his apostles to a lonely place to rest with them. He offers us the same opportunity in our prayer life and when we practice trust in his constant care for us. We need to distinguish healthy rest from rest that can short-circuit our attempts to refresh ourselves. ]
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Prophecy wasn't Amos' original plan for life. God chose him to be a prophet. St. Paul speaks of God choosing small and weak people to do great things for him. God also chooses us for great things: holiness and mission. Our persona, our role in life, should be more and more determined by God's vision and less by our own or by others'.
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Prophetic figures are usually violently resisted. This happened to Christ on the Cross. Sometimes they are simply overlooked or ignored. This happened to Christ in Nazareth, with those who knew him well. Unless we are careful, our own familiarity with Christ could weaken his impact in our life. We should pray about ways to have new and powerful encounters with Jesus.
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On the Feast of St. Josemaria, we reflect on one of his most important teachings: the sanctification of work. After their conversion, the early Christians were encouraged to continue living the same life which God had already given them. St. Josemaria encourages us to do the same. Work is a blessing from God and key to a happy, fulfilled life. Working well is a condition for offering our work to God, thus making it holy and sanctifying ourselves and others in the process. Our life of prayer is an essential element in sanctifying our work, without times of intense prayer we cannot turn work into prayer.
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In the middle of a violent storm, the apostles find Jesus asleep in the boat. This divine sleep of the Son of God teaches us important lessons: the need for rest, the importance of trust in God during difficulties, and the great care that God our Father exercises over us. Only by trusting in God's power and fatherly protection in and through times of trial will we experience our own resurrection to new life. Only by trusting when times are hard do we come to really believe that God is our Father.
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To love God as God we need to think about Him. Adoration is not just feelings of awe and veneration, but a deep knowledge of the awesome transcendence of God. This knowledge empowers our ability to love God more profoundly.
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Jesus fulfills his promise to "remain with us always" with his presence in the Eucharist. To believe in his real presence is a game changer in our prayer life and in life in general. Jesus is alive in the Eucharist so that he can be fully alive in us.
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Jesus' Sacred Heart reveals the depth of his love for us. Opened on the Cross, streams of blood and water poured out from Jesus' Heart. Our own love for God hinges on our having a heart full of compassion, concern, and a practical spirit of service towards others. As disciples of Jesus, we should be known for our love and care for each other and for all people. Only by growing in charity will we truly imitate Jesus, our model and our Lord. If not, our prayer life runs the risk of being inauthentic and hypocritical.
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The Mystery of the Blessed Trinity is a great secret shared with us by God. He tells us about his inner life so we can know him well in order to love him truly. This intimacy is a sign of God's love for us and also of his great trust in us. To know the Trinity is to know that God is love. This removes all false fear of God from our hearts, filling our souls with wonder, confidence and loving adoration.
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The Holy Spirit is a powerful agent of spiritual renewal and transformation. The virtue of docility and the gift of counsel are needed to tap into the motions of the Spirit which always accompany and surround us. The Sanctifier will sculpt the image of Christ in us provided that we are humble and willing to follow his lead.
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Mary is every Christian's model. In the first place, her example teaches us about love. Mary's love is expressed in a radical love for God's will. This love is made possible by her remarkable humility and emboldened by her great trust. Imitating her means growing in these virtues, which free us from ourselves and open us to a greater love of God.
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Jesus prays that we may be "sanctified in the truth." The objective truth of our faith is a necessary part of its saving power. Truth is ultimately personal. Jesus himself is "The way and the truth and the life." Access to this truth demands trust in God's word. Sin, and the devil, are always suggesting the opposite: that God and his word should not be trusted.
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"Love one another as I love you." Jesus has a great confidence in our capacity to love others. The vocation to charity is a tremendous opportunity to make our lives fruitful. In loving others we show them the love Christ and the Father have for them and for us. To do this consistently takes work. Learning to love like Jesus involves purification, overcoming sin, and a lifetime of practice.
Mary Magdalene's encounter with the Risen Christ is truly a master class in love. She teaches us lessons of desire, sorrow, responsibility and union with God. Ultimately, to love is to convert, to make the center of our existence God and others shifting it away from ourselves.
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The Holy Mass makes present Jesus' Resurrection as well as his sacrifice on the Cross. The Body of Christ, as a resurrected body, is a gift that is given to others. To receive our Lord is to become like him and moves us to imitate his goodness.
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Putting ourselves into the scenes of the Resurrection, we can have our own personal encounters with the Risen Lord. Where can we find him? What is he saying to us? How does he want to help us?
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Jesus's death is a great mystery of our faith. It leads to his resurrection and to our eternal life. In accepting death, Jesus enters into the nothingness of sin and evil to conquer it from within. Through his death, he is reborn into resurrected, eternal life. In our Christian life, he invites us into the same dynamic journey.
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Jesus's sacrifice on the cross is already accepted and offered by him at the Last Supper. "This is my body, given for you." Both the Mass and the Cross reveal to us an incredible love. A love that we are called to imitate and a love that can make us secure no matter what happens to us in this life.
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As we enter Holy Week, we contemplate the suffering of Jesus in his passion. This suffering reveals to us both the gravity of sin and the unfathomable love of God for us in Jesus Christ. To contemplate our Lord in his passion can and should be a spur to personal conversion.
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God entrusts St. Joseph with his most precious possessions, his mother and his Divine Son. We too are entrusted with a sacred responsibility in life: to care for and love God's children. Everything and everyone in our life--including ourselves--is a gift from God, something valued by God himself. This calls for a great reverence and respect on our part. We can't "do whatever we want" with ourselves or others. Like King David, our reverence for what belongs to God gives us pause whenever we are tempted to damage it.
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"By your patience you will win your souls." Endurance, perseverance, patience: life is hard at times and seems long, to be faithful to Christ and others we need to stick it out over the long haul.
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The great commandment is to love God "with all of your mind, with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength." Adoration is how we love God most directly as God. This humble recognition of God's holiness, transcendence, and radical goodness is essential for our lives as Christians. Like most things, however, we have to learn to adore God by practicing it. We need to enter into the presence of God in our prayer, be still, and "know that he is God."
In Lent we turn our gaze towards the sufferings of Jesus. Jesus suffers voluntarily, freely, out of love for us. Our Lenten penances are an opportunity to do the same for him. Self-denial is an essential aspect of moral strength and freedom. Without it we are incapacitated to love God and others as we should.
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Lent is a wonderful opportunity to find our peace, joy, and comfort in God. We do this by denying ourselves our usual sources of support, distraction, and pleasure. To be filled by God is to run the risk of emptying ourselves out of other things. This takes trust, courage and patience. God always responds to this kind of personal faith, even when it is imperfect and needs to grow.
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In this week's Gospel, Jesus cures a leper who tells him, "If you will, you can make me clean." In confession, Jesus always wills to cleanse us of sin. These last days before Lent are a great time to pray about the conversion from sin that God is asking of us.
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Today's reading from the Gospel of Mark continues directly from last Sunday's gospel reading. Read together, they give us a picture of a day in the life of Jesus. Jesus's day is filled with work, prayer, and service. He approaches his tasks and situations with generosity and self-forgetfulness. This day in his life is a good model for any day in our own lives.
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The parable of the prodigal son is a parable of freedom and filiation. The prodigal son and his older brother both misuse their freedom. They mistakenly feel constrained by their relationship with their father and end up rejecting him. The prodigal son rediscovers his sonship by reflecting on the truth of his situation. This speaks to a close connection between true freedom and the truth itself. The elder son acts correctly for the most part, but does so without charity, without an identification with his father's heart. This leads him to a resentful and self-righteous fulfillment of his duties. To avoid all of these pitfalls, we look to Jesus, who always acts freely because he always wants to please his most loving Father.
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The first in a series of classes on the Nicene Creed. We cover the concepts of Creation and Conservation, the omnipotence of God and out capacity to know God with reason alone.
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God wakes up the young boy Samuel four times when he gives him his vocation as a prophet. God will also wake us up from different forms of spiritual slumber when we go to him in our times of prayer. Jesus does something similar with Andrew and John. When they take their very first steps as disciples, he asks them "What are you seeking?" We should reflect on how much we listen to God in our prayer, how engaged our own will and desire is in following him, and from what kinds of spiritual sleep we need to be aroused.
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The feast of the Epiphany tells us that Christ meant for everyone. The Magi are the very first of billions of gentiles who will come to be saved in Jesus. The journey of the Magi speaks to us of our own need to search for God. The star they follow and the finding of Jesus bring them great joy, as our own vocation and conversions give us the joy of meeting God in Christ.
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Christmas puts before us the Virgin Mary loving and caring for her Divine Son. It's a scene that we can enter into in our prayer and in our life. Jesus says that we too are "his mother" insofar as we do God's will. God allows Mary and all of us to love him in the Christ child just as He has always loved us: with a mother's heart. Christmas is a time to begin life again with a newfound trust in the goodness of God.
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Originally published Christmas 2020
How wonderful it must have been for the Shepherds from Bethlehem to enter the stable on Christmas night ! Our times of prayer this Christmas are our own chance to be close to the baby Jesus, to speak softly with Mary and Joseph, to be wrapped up in the mystery of God present in the Child. The warm light of the fire in the stable lets us see and welcome into our lives him who is the Light of Life.
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Today we contemplate three ways of thinking about Jesus and his coming. He is the light of the world to whom John the Baptist gives witness. He is the eternal Word. John's voice and ours expresses this Word in preaching and in holiness of life. He is our salvation. By turning away from sin and towards charity with his help, Jesus heals us and brings us deep peace and joy.
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Advent is a penitential season, a time to reckon with our sinfulness and to convert. Conversion requires the belief that we can radically change with God's help. God can fill the valley of our frustration and loneliness. He can lower the mountain of our pride and self-reliance. For this to happen, however, we have to desire it and ask for it with confidence.
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Advent is a time of patience and hope. Both of these virtues entail waiting. Waiting for God is sometimes very difficult, especially in trying situations. Our faith in Jesus, who is God with us and faithful to his promises, bolsters our ability to wait for him with joyful hope. Our faith overcomes the tribulation of the world and even makes us peaceful in the face of possible persecution.
Originally published 2021
Christ's kingdom is hidden, progresses slowly, and respects our freedom. It therefore has to be sought out, given time to develop, and freely assented to. When recognized as our King, Christ brings peace and holiness to our souls.
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Jesus often calls us to vigilance. We know neither the time nor the hour of his second coming and the time of our own death is certain but unknown to us. The best preparation for our judgment is found in discerning and doing the will of God.
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The parable of the ten virgins invites us to reflect on the virtue of wisdom. Wisdom has to do with having the right goals and knowing how to achieve them. If our goal is heaven, the means to achieve this is charity. Growth in charity demands of us a variety of other steps depending on our personal situation and history. To know what we want is not enough, we must also be committed to the steps required to achieve it.
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Originally published 2021
Jesus stresses the importance of humility for being "great" and even "first" in the Kingdom of God. Humility is hard to come by, however, because pride is not easily overcome. The road to deep humility is a often a painful one, but there is also a shortcut called gratitude.
The Psalms and other Bible passages are full of encouraging claims about who and what God is for us. The Lord is our rock, our stronghold, our inheritance ... Faith makes these claims come to life. To be all that he wants to be for us, we must try to let God be our one and true God, whom we love with all of our soul, all of our heart and all of our mind.
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"This is the will of God for you, your sanctification." With these words, St. Paul reveals to us the great potential of our Christian life. St. Josemaria was inspired by God to remind us of this universal vocation. We should always be confident about taking the next step in our spiritual life. It is something that God always wants for us. Holiness is growth in faith, hope, and charity powered by the access we have to God's grace in prayer and the sacraments.
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The Holy Spirit is the great advocate and counselor of our Christian life. With open minds and hearts, we go to him to learn life in Christ. The Holy Spirit always teaches us the basics: we are children of God called to live the fullness of Charity free from excessive fear and worry.
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"He who loves his life will lose it, he who loses his life for my sake will find it." Finding our true life, and our true selves, means handing ourselves over to Christ. Losing our lives for the sake of Christ is a transformative union with him. This takes work and an acceptance of suffering. There is no resurrection of ourselves in Christ without the cross.
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On the occasion of the Memorial of St. Augustine, this meditation is inspired by some of his deep spiritual insights. Augustine reminds us of God's transcendent goodness and his staggering nearness to each one of us. Finding fulfillment in God takes work, the work of prayer and holiness, but it is a task that God himself promises to help us accomplish.
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Returning to the scene of the Transfiguration, we meditate on Peter's exclamation, "Lord, it is good that we are here." It is good to be in prayer with God and to be wherever God wants us to be. Prayer is a necessary and healthy escape for the soul. In a world of false escapes and omnipresent exterior noise, to be souls of prayer we should foster moments of solitude and silence.
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Instead of sending a large crowd away hungry, Jesus miraculously feeds them with the multiplication of loaves and fish. Thousands of people are relieved of their hunger while being fed by the Son of God himself. God knows our spiritual hunger and also responds to it. He feeds us in the Eucharist, in Scripture, in prayer, in doing his will. Warned by God himself, we need to look out for destructive substitutes that do not truly satisfy our soul's longing for joy and peace.
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Jesus' transfiguration is a momentary manifestation of his divinity. This event reminds us of Jesus' beneficent power on our behalf. St. Peter was struck by the wonder of the transfiguration and refers to it in order to bolster our faith in the reality of Christ's life and mission. God the Father testifies to his Son's authority telling us to "Listen to Him." We do this in our prayer and in our humility in asking for and receiving advice.
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To truly meet Christ is to experience a great conversion. Life becomes centered on his person and his mission. This conversion entails taking on a new life and leaving behind our sinful ways. To convert is to turn towards God and away from sin. Leaving sin behind is no easy matter. Above all it takes liberation--redemption--by Christ. It also presupposes a courageous sincerity about how we minimize the importance of sin, giving into the illusion that sinfulness is actually good.
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Originally published July 2021
Our Lord Jesus calls Christians the "salt of the earth" and "the light of the world." The presence of believing Christians is fundamental for the health and salvation of humanity. Realizing the gravity and urgency of our mission, we should put aside all division and distractions and commit ourselves to living our Catholic faith. This demands daily trust in God, daily repentance from sin and daily conversion towards true charity.
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Jesus promises rest for those who come to him labored and heavy laden. To receive rest from God happens in a special way in our prayer. Accepting God's will and growing in trust help us to rest even when we have serious concerns in our life. Adoration especially refreshes the soul. To adore God is to relieve ourselves of the burden of trying to live without him.
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The Bible refers to the moral law as "written on the heart." In this class we discuss the principles of the natural law.
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The Christian life entails a struggle. Growing in virtue and overcoming vice requires serious effort. This struggle for holiness, however, may seem overwhelming to the weak and self-empowering to the proud. Realizing that God's aid is essential for all spiritual growth helps to overcome these two mistakes. Our spiritual combat must be carried out bravely and freely but also with full confidence in God.
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For the Feast of St. Josemaria we pray about one of his central spiritual teachings: unity of life. Our life often seems divided by various distinct tasks and concerns. To do things for the glory of God, for love of God, is a powerful instrument that unifies our life. Our awareness of our divine filiation also lends unity to seemingly unconnected realities. Whatever I do, I should do as a son or daughter of God. Our contemplative life, an awareness of God's presence, also grants a powerful sense of unity to our entire life. This awareness is forged in the practice of mental prayer, where we reinforce the reality of God's presence everywhere and filter our life and its concerns through our relationship with God.
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Jesus describes his sacred and merciful heart as meek and humble. More than anger and disappointment at our sins, Jesus feels compassion for us in our waywardness. In the Sacred Heart of Jesus we especially see the goodness of God towards sinners. This makes God approachable in Jesus and keeps us from the mistake of trying to be good without him.
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On the Feast of Corpus Christi the Church turns her heart to Jesus's real presence in the Blessed Sacrament. A marvel of love, in the Eucharist the infinite enters the finite, the Creator his creation and the invisible the visible real. Adoration, devotion, and gratitude should mark our response to this great mystery of our Faith.
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Originally published June 2021
The mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of God's inner life. Revealing it to us in Jesus Christ, God shares with us his own deep intimacy so that we can know and love him. The Trinity is also a mystery in which every Christian is enveloped. By the work of the Holy Spirit, we are made children of God the Father in God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
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The Holy Spirit is all about peace. As consoler and the Spirit of Christ, the working of the Holy Spirit and his seven gifts always establish peace in our hearts and our lives. Peace is a consequence of having God as our Father, and it is the Spirit of the Son that establishes this reality in our hearts.
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Pentecost Sunday commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Church. The Holy Spirit is an agent of conversion and purification for our life. God wants us to be "on fire" as Christians, quick to love and to do his will. Jesus promises that those who ask for the Holy Spirit will receive him, and that those who receive him receive him abundantly.
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Follow up to the class on suffering. Question and answer session.
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Suffering is an unavoidable reality in life. What light does the Christian Faith shed on the meaning of suffering? In this class we will examine the origin of suffering, its relationship to God, and how to make the most of our personal suffering in living the Christian vocation.
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Our Lady is a perfect model of holiness and love. Heading towards Pentecost, we can reflect on her relationship with her Divine Spouse, the Holy Spirit. To have God's Spirit is to have Christ's own motivation, to be inspired by the same spirit that he was. We see this in Mary, who says "Be it done unto me according to your word." The Spirit is a renewer of the soul. To have the Spirit as our spirit pays off in spades, namely, the beautiful fruits of the Holy Spirit.
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Jesus encourages us to respond to our troubled hearts with trust in him and in his Father. To see Jesus is to see the Father, to know Jesus is to know the Father. Jesus's love and mercy reveal what God is truly like even more than a vision of God's power and majesty. Jesus's miracles show us that the same God who is the all powerful creator is also our savior and loving father. Our trust in God's goodness is emboldened by our awareness of God's strength. God's first "miracle," creation, also speaks clearly of God's power on our behalf.
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Jesus is the Good Shepherd. This reality fills us with confidence in following Christ. Jesus is also the gate into the fullness of life and into eternal life. Entering this gate entails conversion. We need to leave behind whatever keeps us from following Christ. Conversion demands courage, however, because the gate to life is narrow and the path is difficult. We need courage to fight against sin, to recognize it in the first place, and to accept the tension that our Christian life can cause in our contemporary world. Since Jesus is our Shepherd, however, this courage is made possible through trust in him. He is always at our side, with his rod and his staff.
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"He who eats this bread will live forever." "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him." In the Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus makes wonderful claims about Eucharistic Communion. In Communion, we share in Jesus' resurrection and are intimately united with him. This should change the way we think about Jesus. He is not a merely figure from the past or a distant model to imitate, he is a spiritual force in our lives, a person who is always present with a mind, a will, power, and initiatives. Faith unlocks Jesus' life in our lives, his activity in our activities.
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Originally published in 2021.
On Divine Mercy Sunday, we reflect on Jesus's message of peace to the Apostles in the upper room on Easter Sunday. He brings them peace and joy when they are afraid and sad. He gives them and us the means to return to peace, the sacrament of confession. God's Mercy is powerful and enduring, only our pride can keep us from experiencing its marvelous effects.
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The Cross of Christ is "folly to the Gentiles and a scandal to the Jews." The Crucifixion contradicts our normal expectations of who God is and how he should act. In speaking against us the Cross reveals God as radical love and sin as radical evil. The Cross even contradicted Jesus, who asked that "this cup might pass" during his prayer in the garden. Our crosses will thus also be difficult to understand and accept. However, they remain precious opportunities to follow Christ and live his life.
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Jesus's death on the cross is the supreme revelation of God's love. St. Paul tells us that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ. Christ's death shows us how much he loves us and what the Father's love for Him, and for us, is like. This is a reliable love, upon which we can firmly plant all of our problems and our whole life. The cross fills us with confidence in God and our own crosses are a sign of God's confidence in us.
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Almsgiving (charity) is one of the three traditional practices of Lent. When preaching about almsgiving, Jesus focuses on purity of intention. We should love others for their sake and for the glory of God. St. Paul paints a portrait of the Christian heart in his letter to the Ephesians. Christian charity is especially imbued with understanding of others and selflessness in service.
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While Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving are the three traditional practices of Lent, prayer should take priority. We learn from the example of Jesus who put prayer in the first place in his day. Like Our Lord, we should make sacrifices in order to find time to pray. Mental prayer is especially fruitful and important. To raise our minds and hearts to God is restful and reminds us that God is our father and our great friend. Lacking time for prayer is most often a lack of desire to pray or a failure to really grasp its importance. To pray well, we should be totally open and sincere with God about our lives and everything happening in our heart.
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St. Paul's letter to the Romans connects justification with a state of spiritual peace. God's love for us should be a source of continual peace even amidst problems and turbulent times. This takes an effort to grow in our faith and to evaluate everything in the light of faith. Hope depends on the reality of God and his love. Paul also sees God's love for us as a source of inner and resilient joy. Knowing that God loves us is a fount of joy that we can tap into even when saddened or distressed by the sorrows of life.
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At twelve years of age Jesus takes initiative and responsibility for his mission. To be a man is to take life seriously. Pleasure seeking and love of comfort will keep us from being true men. Boredom is a symptom of selfishness and indifference to others. Jesus invites us to join him in his work of redemption. This takes growth in our own sense of maturity, self-control, responsibility, and initiative.
Some of the examples in this meditation may not be suitable for younger children.
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A theology class given for parents at Montrose School in January 2023.
If God is good and all of his creation is therefore good, what can "evil" possibly be? The mysterious nature of evil and its connection to nothingness are important topics for Christian reflection. By understanding evil's strange relationship with goodness and the true source of moral evil, we will be better equipped to recognize and reject it.
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After forty days of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus is tempted by the devil. We learn the importance of our own Lenten fasts by reflecting on Jesus' fast. Jesus' temptations also contain valuable lessons for us. Temptation is part of God's plan for us. As it was for Jesus, temptation can be for us a great spiritual opportunity rather than an obstacle.
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Lent is a season of penance and prayer. Voluntary denial of our bodies, souls, and our very selves strengthens our spiritual life. Without silence, deep prayer is impossible. Without mortification of our habitual distractions, interior silence is unattainable. Above all, we should practice the denial of our ego. Self-satisfaction, vanity, and pride can all coexist with other forms of mortification. For Jesus to live in us and through us, the denial of our self-centeredness is indispensable.
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Lent is a great opportunity for conversion. Conversion is a deep change of mind and heart: to leave behind the wisdom of the world in order to have the mind of Christ. The beatitudes are a call to conversion. They contradict what the world considers as essential to a good life. The first beatitude, "blessed are the poor in spirit" is particularly helpful for us in our often materialistic and consumerist culture. Lent provides us with a season to practice detachment and to foster interior silence, making space for an encounter with God.
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Life in Heaven is the supreme goal of our life on earth. Desiring Heaven is brought about by the theological virtue of hope. Our longing for Heaven, and our capacity to reach it, is tied to our love of God in this life. We must learn to love God as our happiness in this life if we wish to enter eternal life confidently. Hope helps us avoid despair on the one hand, whenever we see the depth of our sinfulness, and keeps presumption at bay on the other hand, whenever we are tempted to falsely "exaggerate" God's mercy.
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"By your patience you will save your souls." Jesus's words highlight the importance of patience in the Christian life. Patience is the ability to suffer well. Suffering well entails freely embracing suffering which cannot or should not be avoided. The deepest truth about patience is its connection to charity, to love. "Love is patient. ... Love endures all things." To love God, others, and ourselves rightly, we must learn to practice patience with God, with others, and also with ourselves.
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The martyrdom of the seven sons and their mother in the second book of Maccabees helps us to reflect on our own relationship with God. All martyrs and saints detest sin so much that they would rather die than offend God in a serious way. Their trust and hope in God's providence and in eternal life strengthens their resolve against sin. God is worth living for and dying for. This is exactly how God loves us. On the Cross Jesus showed the "greatest love" when he "laid down his life for his friends."
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All Souls Day is a special occasion to pray for all the faithful departed, especially for those closest to us.
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Our call to holiness is clearly revealed in the New Testament. St. Peter tells us, "as he who called you is holy, be holy in all your conduct." This is clearly a call to action. At the same time, however, we must realize that holiness is more something done to us-- and in us--than something done by us. "To be filled with the fullness of God", as St. Paul puts it, is a divine initiative. This takes great courage and trust on our part, because to be filled with God is also to die once and again to ourselves.
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First in a series of classes on Christian ethics. In this class we discuss ethics in general and then focus on the difference that Christ makes to ethics. Ethical concerns are universal to all men and women. The difference between good and bad living, good and bad choices, is something that we all have to face and reckon with. Christ offers abundant light and new possibilities for our ethical life. In Christ the ability to be truly good is made available to all. He offers a satisfying explanation of moral weakness and corruption while empowering us to not just be good but holy by sharing in God's own life. Tapping in to the goodness offered by Christ entails a radical decision to live high ethical standards, a resolute sincerity about our failings, and a contrite appeal to his mercy whenever we fail.
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Jesus's parable of the widow and the unjust judge teaches us to pray with persistence and intensity. While always confident that God our Father hears and answers our prayers, we are called to exercise this confidence by patient perseverance in our petitions. "Prayer works." This is a fundamental Gospel truth. Prayer is powerful and others depend on our prayers of intercession for them. Prayer of petition brings us closer to God, by reminding us of our status as his creatures and children.
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Jesus's healing encounter with the ten lepers helps us reflect on mercy and grace. Like the lepers with their disease, only a miracle can help us overcome our sinfulness. Each conversion is a real miracle, including our own conversions. Grace is a gift. Gifts are not earned, but humbly asked for. In the month of the Rosary, we can be more aware of all of the mercy we ask for whenever we pray the Rosary well.
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Opus Dei , the Work of God, was founded by St. Josemaria on October 2nd, 1928. The universal call to holiness, clearly expressed in the New Testament and tirelessly preached by St. Josemaria, was first experienced by him personally as a young man. This loving call is eternal and intimately connected to our identity and mission in life. By responding to this call we turn the "ordinary prose" of our everyday life into "heroic verse." Our work and life thus becomes a true "Work of God."
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The Samaritan woman's meeting Jesus at the well is a model for our own encounter with Him in prayer. He thirsts for our prayer and understands our human condition. He offers us "the Gift of God" and entices us with talk of living water. Sincerity about our sinfulness, our lack of trust, is necessary to have him as our savior, to receive all that he offers. Once healed we, like the woman at the well, can move from shame to shameless proclamation of Christ.
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Matthew's response to his vocation demonstrates a great deal of trust in Jesus. His Gospel emphasizes Jesus's deep appreciation of faith and his disappointment at its absence. Trust in Jesus should be absolute, lending a great certainty to our faith in his Church and in all of his teachings. "Faith is the evidence of things unseen." This means that at times we will have to trust more in Jesus than in the evidence of our own senses or the apparent evidence of our own judgment.
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Christ's Triumph on the Cross defeated sin and death. It was a triumph of love over selfishness. This victory needs to be repeated in our own lives, in our own carrying of the Cross. Sin and selfishness have to be defeated in us and this entails the acceptance of suffering and sacrifice; in a word the acceptance of the Cross. Suffering is inevitable in life, but whether it is redemptive and sanctifying or futile and permanent is truly up to us.
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The Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a cause of Christian joy and wonder. Our Lady's birth reminds us of the historical reality of our faith. Mary was and is a real woman who lived a normal human life just like ours. Through her, in her, our God became man to redeem us. Her birth precedes and enables his infant birth. In our own way, God can be born once again in us. This happens when we imitate Mary's humility and obedient love.
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The infinite transcendence of God is a challenge to our faith and love. Jesus uses shocking language to teach us just how radically different our love for God should be compared with all of our other loves. Developing a more adequate love for God first requires believing in his radical transcendence and his primacy. It also requires the humility to admit that we do not yet love him as he deserves. From this faith and humility, we can move to improve the quality of our love for God: with prayer, with Charity, and with soul-freeing self-denial.
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Jesus continually calls us to an alert vigilance. He does this to make us aware of the great opportunities of love and service that fill our ordinary lives. At the beginning of a new school year, it is good to foster an eager alertness in our souls, an excitement for the work that lies ahead of us. If we find ourselves dull and without energy, we can start by asking Jesus for more strength, more enthusiasm. If our lethargy persists, we can pray and practice a greater love of interior struggle as an opportunity to love heroically.
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Jesus tells us to pray to have the strength "to stand before the Son of Man." When we die we will be judged by God. This is a hard truth but also a truth that saves us. If we ask God for the courage to see ourselves as we really are now, we will be prepared for our death and God's judgment. Reliance on God's grace, fostering sincerity with ourselves and others, living charity, and regularly examining our conscience are all ways to avoid self-deception and to prepare for our definitive meeting with God.
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Originally published 8/15/2020.
The Assumption of Our Lady is one of God's wonderful works. It provides an opportunity for us to increase our faith in God and to contemplate our Lady's presence with her Son in heaven.
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Jesus' promises his disciples a joy "that no one will take from you." To be joyful we have to be attentive and sensitive to the great goods in our life. Among these are God's constant love for us and our own ability to love and serve him in return. Pride obscures our vision of true goods. To serve joyfully and find joy in serving, we need to foster humility.
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Large, desperate crowd would press in on Jesus to hear and touch him. He was the focus of all of their attention and desires. Our Lord should be just the same for us: central to our lives. We meet Jesus in the bread, in Sacred Scripture, in our habitual presence of God, and in others.
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Originally published March 2021
As Good Friday approaches, we reflect on Jesus' death on the Cross. In his Passion and death, Jesus turns suffering into love. Love gives his suffering meaning and makes it fruitful. Jesus invites us to likewise accept suffering as a means to loving God and others. Suffering is unavoidable in this life, the real question is what will we do with it?
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Humility is a crucial virtue for the Christian life. Living it demands some courage given our tendency to prop ourselves up and to protect our self-esteem. Admitting our sinfulness and even our nothingness before God, however, is ultimately liberating and fruitful. Our humility must be accompanied by a deep sense of God's reality and his love for us. If it is, we will experience that "he who humbles himself will be exalted."
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Jesus' visit to Martha and Mary contains great insights for our Christian life. Mary's attention to our Lord is a great act of appreciation and love. Jesus' correction of Martha is not owing to her being busy serving, but more for her being distracted and worried. Love, which includes prayer, is the one thing necessary. And love unites our attention, giving focus and purpose to all that we do.
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Moses describes God's law as "near" to the people of Israel. God's Word is also very near to us. Thanks to Jesus, we know what it takes to live life well and enter eternal life. The problem is actually wanting to do it. Like the scholar of the law, we wish to justify ourselves by overthinking, by making excuses, by hiding our basic unwillingness to love and obey. God's grace can change our unwillingness to willing submission and all of our obstinate "no's" into loving "yes's."
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King David's fall into adultery and murder is a lesson in how sin happens and how we can respond to it. David's sin is preceded by idleness and sloth. Once fully aware of his sin, however, he appeals immediately to God's mercy. Our first response to sin should always be a radical trust in God's mercy and, when necessary, a prompt recourse to confession. In addition to trust in God's mercy, we should be resolute in our struggle against sinful habits.
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On the Feast of St. Josemaria, we reflect on Jesus's presence in our ordinary lives and work.
Originally published 2020.
On the Feast of St. Josemaria, we reflect on Jesus's presence in our ordinary lives and work.
The "Bread of Life" Discourse in John Chapter 6 is a treasure trove of spiritual insights. Faith in Jesus's person is paramount for the Christian life. This faith is tested by the audacity of his claims for the Eucharist as well as by the trials and difficulties of our personal Christian vocation. Jesus promises spiritual satisfaction, eternal life, and, most amazingly of all, intimate communion with him for those who receive the Bread of Life in the Eucharist.
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For the Feast of Corpus Christi we meditate on the Eucharistic hymn "Adoro te devote." Hidden in the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lord Jesus is truly present: body, blood, soul, and divinity. This marvel of our faith reveals God's humble and radical love for us. Our response should be one of ever greater adoration, wonder, faith, hope and love.
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The Trinity is the deepest mystery of our Faith, revealing to us the secrets of God's inner life. This mystery transmits to us God's transcendence, his intimacy with us, and the importance of charity in the Christian life.
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The Holy Spirit is a powerful agent of spiritual renewal and transformation. The virtue of docility and the gift of counsel are needed to tap into the motions of the Spirit which always accompany and surround us. The Sanctifier will sculpt the image of Christ in us provided that we are humble and willing to follow his lead.
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After telling her "I am the resurrection and the life" Jesus asks Martha point blank, "Do you believe this?" What is the caliber of our faith in Christ? Do we believe all that he tells us about himself and his relationship to us?
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Recorded live May 17, 2022.
On preparing for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Docility is key to fostering a deeper relationship with the Paraclete. Where do we find his inspirations? What does he want us to do? How do we know if we are lead by the Spirit? Questions like these will help us be ready for Pentecost.
Recorded live Wednesday, May 11.
Reflections on Marian devotion and Our Lady of Fatima.
The image of our Lord as Good Shepherd is a challenging one. It means that we Christians are sheep. Our pride and self-sufficiency naturally bristle at this image. Only with deep humility, and contemplating Jesus the Lamb of God, can we embrace being sheep and having a Shepherd.
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Originally published May 2021
The month of May is Mary's month. The Church teaches and lives an extraordinary love for Mary, our Mother. This month is an opportunity to entrust big, important intentions and problems to Our Lady's loving care and intercession.
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God's power is especially evident in his mercy. There are no sins that he can't forgive and his mercy waits upon the smallest opening of repentance and sorrow for sin. Receiving God's mercy is also the result of being merciful ourselves. Forgiving others is a condition for being forgiven. Our own forgiveness and mercy make us like our Father God: constant in love and invincible in goodness.
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Easter is the feast of all feasts, the new day of great joy. Like the apostles and first disciples, we rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus. Contemplating their interactions with the risen Lord, we learn to find Christ in the most ordinary moments of our lives.
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Lent closes with Holy Saturday. With her Son resting in the tomb, Mary keeps the faith of the Church alive.
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We are redeemed by an act of love: specifically by Jesus' willingness to suffer on our behalf.
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The second of two meditations on the Seven Last Words of Jesus on the Cross.
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Originally published on Youtube in 2020.
The first of two meditations on the Seven Last Words of Jesus on the Cross.
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Originally published on Youtube in 2020.
"If we knew the value of the Mass we would die of joy." -- St. John Marie Vianney
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Wednesday of Holy Week is called "Spy Wednesday." Judas is truly a spy, and many times so are we.
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Our Lord foresees the betrayal of Judas and the denials of Peter. He is hurt by our betrayals too.
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Caiaphas unknowingly predicts our redemption by planning our Lord's death. He plays right into God's own greater plan.
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Today the Church turns her eyes towards Mary, Mother of Sorrows.
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A week before Good Friday, the Church contemplates Mary at the foot of the Cross. Mary shares her son's passion. She co-redeems with him by actively accepting her suffering and also consenting to his. This consent is an act of love and support for Jesus as he completes his mission, suffering and dying for us on the Cross. Her fiat at the Annunciation carries through to a fiat at the foot of the Cross. We need to say our own fiats, to all of those crosses that are sent to us without our initial consent or initiative. Like Jesus, we will be helped in all of our crosses by the loving presence of Mary.
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"The truth will set you free." Part of the truth is hard to accept. A good examination of conscience helps a lot.
Examinations of conscience: https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/sacraments-and-sacramentals/penance/examinations-of-conscience
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Lifted up on the Cross, Jesus reveals himself to be God.
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"Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." Jesus' response to our sins.
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The Crowning of Jesus with thorns reveals his humility and his rectitude of intention. Christ's intense focus on his mission frees him from concern for the respect of others. God the Father's love and affirmation makes up for the disdain of men. We too need to rectify our intention, trying to do all for the glory of God. Along with realizing God's fatherly love for us, this will free us from the fear of ridicule and attachment to human respect.
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The book of Wisdom predicts the rejection of Christ who is a reproach to the wicked. We can react in the same way to goodness.
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"Do you wish to be healed?" A great question from Jesus to each one of us.
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"I am about to create new heavens and a new earth." Faith in God means faith in his power to recreate and renew us, no matter how bad we are.
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On the Fourth Sunday of Lent the Church encourages us to rejoice. The joy proper to Lent is the joy of repentance and of receiving God's mercy. The prodigal son experienced this joy when he returned contritely to his father. King David experienced it when he repented of his grave sins against Uriah. Only by admitting our deep sinfulness will we experience the "joy of salvation" expressed in the psalms. The recognition of our status as sinners takes nothing away from the awareness of our dignity and a proper self-regard. God loves as and forgives us precisely as sinners.
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Originally published in 2021
Justification is a gift that we receive from God. This takes humility and an appeal to his mercy.
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Originally published in 2021
Mary's "yes" changes everything. Our "yes" can do a lot too.
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Originally published in 2021
In spite of all of the good he does, Jesus is criticized and viewed with suspicion. Why and what does it mean for us?
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Apologies for the earlier repeat, here is a reflection on today's Gospel.
Originally published in 2021
In redeeming and saving us, God does not do so from a distance. He rather enters history and comes near to us.
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Originally published in 2021
Looking for something to let go of? Let's start with our grudges.
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Originally published 2021 (when the feast of St. Joseph fell on a Friday)
St. Joseph is a man on a mission. His life is all about just one thing. Ours should be too.
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God entrusts St. Joseph with his most precious possessions, his mother and his Divine Son. We too are entrusted with a sacred responsibility in life: to care for and love God's children. Everything and everyone in our life--including ourselves--is a gift from God, something valued by God himself. This calls for a great reverence and respect on our part. We can't "do whatever we want" with ourselves or others. Like King David, our reverence for what belongs to God gives us pause whenever we are tempted to damage it.
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Originally published in 2021
In the parable of the vineyard, Jesus reveals the radical nature of our redemption. God turns our rejection of Him into his acceptance and forgiveness of us.
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St. Patrick was the apostle of Ireland. What about you and me?
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Originally published 2021
If God thinks you can do something, you certainly can do it. And He thinks you can be a saint!
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Originally Published in 2021
For Jesus, true greatness means great service.
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Originally published in 2021
"Judge not." Rash judgment is a very easy way to lack charity. Fighting it is a good Lenten practice.
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First published 2/28/2021
Shortly before his death on Calvary Jesus is transfigured in glory on Mount Thabor. Our spiritual lives have similar peaks and valleys. This is no accident but an important part of God's will for us. Learning how to use the peaks to navigate the valleys is a lesson we can learn from Jesus and the apostles' experience on Thabor and on Calvary.
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Originally published in 2021.
"Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you." God wants us to imitate and have a share in Jesus' own merciful love.
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Originally published in 2021.
To be truly righteous, we need to recognize our sinfulness and strive for inner goodness.
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Originally published in 2021.
"Ask, seek, knock." Jesus gives us great confidence that God always answers our prayers. Our Lenten penance can make them even more powerful.
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Originally published in 2021.
Jesus laments the lack of response from his hearers. Lent is a time for us to be a good audience.
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Originally published in 2021.
Forgiveness for our sins is an essential part of Lent. But to receive forgiveness we must be ready to give it.
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"What you did to the least of these my brethren, you did to me." The final exam of our life will have only one question.
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The Lenten practices of prayer and self-denial should increase our Christian charity. Without an increase in love of God and others, Lenten sacrifices risk becoming self-righteous and egotistical. Charity, as described by St. Paul, demands a patient process of growth and self-mastery. The Cross of Christ, which we look forward to at the end of Lent and which we are called to take up daily, is a radical act of trust and selfless love. Practicing such trust and love entails a lively battle against our self-centeredness. Lent is a great time to wage this battle.
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Originally published 2021.
In order to have Jesus as savior, we have to admit our need for salvation. Unless we realize we are spiritually sick, he cannot save and heal us.
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Originally published 2021.
The Church only requires two days of fasting each Lent. If we can, it's good to do more.
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Originally published 2021.
"Whoever saves his life will lose it." A huge task in life is giving up control.
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Jesus' forty days in the desert serve as a model for Lent. Detached from normal necessities, Jesus fasts, prays, and battles the devil. Our Lenten sacrifices help us to live more dependent on God, focusing on the “one thing necessary.” Fasting and self-denial give life and energy to the spirit. A generous and fruitful Lent takes insight and courage. The reward for our spiritual life is more than worth the effort.
The first daily Lenten Homily. Originally published 2021.
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The Sermon on the Mount is the core of Jesus's teaching on how to live with faith. At once challenging and comforting, Jesus's vision of faith calls us to a radical dependence on God and detachment from all other goods. At the heart of faith is an unshakable trust in God's infinite love for us. This conviction frees us to live without fear and to strive for virtue without anxiety. To have a living faith, however, takes personal prayer: times in which we apply the basic truths of our faith in God to the concrete circumstances and concerns of our current lives.
A woman suffering from a hemorrhage fights through a crowd to touch Jesus with faith. This Gospel story teaches a great deal about our own relationship with Jesus. Her miracle has three key ingredients: need, faith, and contact with Christ. Our own encounters with Christ will be more impactful and fruitful the more we need him, trust him, and have direct contact with him. Like this woman, we are all spiritually bleeding and wounded. By contact with Christ--in communion, confession and prayer--we can learn what these wounds are and experience his healing power.
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The parable of the prodigal son is a parable of freedom and filiation. The prodigal son and his older brother both misuse their freedom. They mistakenly feel constrained by their relationship with their father and end up rejecting him. The prodigal son rediscovers his sonship by reflecting on the truth of his situation. This speaks to a close connection between true freedom and the truth itself. The elder son acts correctly for the most part, but does so without charity, without an identification with his father's heart. This leads him to a resentful and self-righteous fulfillment of his duties. To avoid all of these pitfalls, we look to Jesus, who always acts freely because he always wants to please his most loving Father.
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This is the audio of a Zoom class given last year to a women's group at a local parish. The topic is The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. We review the basic theology of this wonderful doctrine: why we believe it, where it comes from in the Bible, why it's possible, how it works, and its import for our spiritual life. There are about 30 minutes of lecture followed by a time of Q and A.
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Originally published 9/23/20
Having the true God as our personal God is a great accomplishment and privilege. The worship of false gods can take various forms. In order to be truly human and to love God as he deserves, we need to identify and cast out our idols.
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Jesus is the anointed one, sent by God to preach good news to the poor, to liberate captives, to give sight to the blind, and to free the oppressed. Believing this means bringing all of our problems to him. If we don’t depend on Christ in this way, he is not truly Christ for us. Our souls also need to grow in loving Jesus above everything and everyone else. St. Paul is a model of loving Christ in this way. By reading about and meditating on Christ, conversing with him in our prayer, we grow to love him in the way that he deserves and needs to be loved.
At the wedding feast of Cana, a young couple is privileged with the presence of Jesus and Mary. Mary's interaction with Jesus shows us the power of her intercession and teaches us to have a great trust in God. Our Lady's advice, 'do whatever he tells you,' is at once practical and profound. Coming from her own experience of fruitful submission to God's will, this piece of advice is a foolproof way to grow in holiness and in love.
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First published 1/11/21: In Jesus's Baptism we see Jesus doing something unnecessary and in a sense unfair. He takes on the role of a sinner, allowing John to baptize him with his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. At the beginning of his public life, this event foreshadows our redemption at the end of Jesus's life--his death on the cross. Jesus loves us by lowering himself, forgetful of his status and his rights, giving himself in a way that is beyond all necessity and human logic. Christian life is an invitation to do the same
The three Magi give us an example of humility and daring. Their three gifts each symbolize an aspect of the Mystery of Christ. Christ is King, Victim, and God. In our own way, we can give him Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, with our generosity, our spirit of sacrifice, and our adoration. The gifts of the Magi remind us of the greatest gift of Christmas, the gift of Christ himself. In Christ we receive countless spiritual gifts. These are meant to be freely accepted and also shared with the world.
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Christmas puts before us the Virgin Mary loving and caring for her Divine Son. It's a scene that we can enter into in our prayer and in our life. Jesus says that we too are "his mother" insofar as we do God's will. God allows Mary and all of us to love him in the Christ child just as He has always loved us: with a mother's heart. Christmas is a time to begin life again with a newfound trust in the goodness of God.
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Our desire to see Jesus this Christmas is a deep desire to see God. Made for heaven, we will be unfulfilled until we see God "face to face." The Church calls the sight of God in heaven the "beatific vision." Our earthly happiness also depends on our seeing God in Christ. This happens in our faith and in our prayer. Only by purifying our ideas and desires for happiness, making them correspond more perfectly to our true goal, will we be content in this life and happy forever in the next.
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Originally published 12/21/2020.
We can join Mary and Joseph on their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The divine adventure that they were on was filled with trust in God, which counteracted their natural concerns and fears. The silent presence of Jesus within his Mother's womb was a source of wonder, love, and prayer for Mary and Joseph. Jesus's silent presence in Mary and his silent sleep in the manger has a profound meaning for times of spiritual dryness.
Jesus comes to make us joyful. He shares his joy with us and calls us to a deep happiness. Our times of sadness and sorrow are certainly part of his plan for us, but they can coexist with a constant joy. When we put too much value in passing things, of whatever kind, our joy becomes fragile and fleeting. To make God our joy, by contrast, is to have a joy "that no one can take from you." Not only is God the cause of our joy, but in his love for us we are also the cause of his joy.
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God's victory over sin begins with his Mother's Immaculate Conception. His mercy for us as sinners also includes our struggle against sin and eventually our complete purification. The means we have are the same: openness to grace, use of our freedom, and having the Lord stay with us.
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Advent is a penitential season, a time to reckon with our sinfulness and to convert. Conversion requires the belief that we can radically change with God's help. God can fill the valley of our frustration and loneliness. He can lower the mountain of our pride and self-reliance. For this to happen, however, we have to desire it and ask for it with confidence.
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In Advent we prepare for the coming of the Christ Child at Christmas. Jesus, who found no room in the inn at Bethlehem, can find room in our souls and our lives if we prepare well for his coming. Making room for Jesus means clearing other things out, finding time for prayer, and welcoming him in others.
Originally published 11/24/2020
On this Thanksgiving weekend, we take time to reflect on gratitude. Gratitude is an essential act of prayer. Being grateful is closely linked to joy and freedom from sadness and despair. The grateful soul needs humility, temperance and chastity to continually recognize all of the gifts that come from God.
For the study on gratitude and well-being, please visit: https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/how-to-flourish
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Christ's kingdom is hidden, progresses slowly, and respects our freedom. It therefore has to be sought out, given time to develop, and freely assented to. When recognized as our King, Christ brings peace and holiness to our souls.
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The "end of the world" is the coming of Christ in power and glory. As such, it is not so much a destructive end as it is a fulfillment and completion. To be safe at the Lord's coming, at the time of judgment, we especially need to be truthful now. The sure path of eternal life is the path which is Jesus himself: "the way, the truth, and the life." This entails bravely overcoming our self-deception and "loving Jesus more than our sins." Living in this way liberates us from fear of divine judgment, whether at our death or at the end of time.
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Elijah asks a starving widow to share her very last provisions with him. Trusting in God's promise, her meager resources last them through an entire year. Our Lord asks us for a similar trusting generosity in times of fatigue and discouragement. The Mass makes present Christ as true spiritual food, enriching enough for our earthly pilgrimage and a gateway to heaven. It also makes present Christ's redemptive sacrifice, powerful enough to overcome all evil and sin. To follow Christ, we need to avoid pharisaical self-righteousness. This is the temptation to trust in ourselves, to make ourselves good, while avoiding the blessed uncertainty and the messy humility of the "way of the grain."
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The Feast of All Saints reminds us of our ultimate destiny in heaven. The call to holiness is a call to imitate Christ by letting God into our lives just as they are right now. The lives of the saints remind us that the saints weren't superhuman. All of the saints had "issues" just like us. No matter what state or situation we find ourselves in, we can take the next step in sanctity by trusting and loving God a little bit more.
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In the face of a great personal tragedy, Jesus insists to the synagogue official Jairus that he replace his fear with trust. To hope is to be convinced that God is greater than any problem in our life. Hope also transforms our expectations for happiness. It moves us to place our greatest desires in God and in heaven, rather than in anything in this earthly life. By practicing Christian hope, especially during the most difficult times, we free ourselves to love and help the world in a more truthful and effective way.
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The Christian's call to holiness is a mysterious reality. How can we be holy when holiness is exclusive to God and underlines his transcendent otherness? How can we be perfect who are obviously sinful and weak? Only by possessing and being possessed by Christ is holiness possible for us. Sanctity is to have him live in us through the sacraments, our prayer life, and our gradual imitation of his life and dispositions.
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The ups and downs of St. Peter are an example of starting over after coming up short. To begin again after some failure is not just to keep trying, but to learn humility and a greater reliance on God. Without our stumbles and falls we would never learn how much we need God's mercy and healing power.
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Originally published 9/28/2020
The three Archangels teach us important truths about God. They reveal to us His transcendence, His power, and His salvific action.
The Christian life entails a struggle. Growing in virtue and overcoming vice requires serious effort. This struggle for holiness, however, may seem overwhelming to the weak and self-empowering to the proud. Realizing that God's aid is essential for all spiritual growth helps to overcome these two mistakes. Our spiritual combat must be carried out bravely and freely but also with full confidence in God.
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Jesus's love is a burning, fervent love. God himself is described as a 'burning fire' in the Letter to the Hebrews. As disciples, we too ought to be men and women who are "on fire": apostolic, energetic, engaged, and up for sacrifices. This entails overcoming lukewarmness, a spiritual illness that makes us allergic to Christian fervor and zeal.
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Jesus' apparent failure on the Cross is in reality a great victory. His suffering was necessary for his glorification and for our salvation. As Christians, our suffering is similarly necessary. It is a means of purification, sanctification, and co-redemption. Living through trials lovingly and prayerfully can teach us tremendous lessons about God and ourselves. Like Christ, the trusting acceptance of our crosses becomes a great victory over sin and selfishness.
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Our Faith gives us a living relationship with Jesus Christ and his Father God. We are truly children of God in Christ. This realization should fill us with confidence and trust. God, who is all powerful and all knowing, is our loving Father. He loves us with the same love with which he loves his divine Son.
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The Bible often encourages us to a silent, receptive stance before God's reality and goodness. This kind of prayer takes recollection or composure of heart, which in turn requires some trust in God. Our distaste for quiet prayer can be rooted in an unwillingness to cede control or a fear of the changes it might provoke in us. Jesus's advice to the busy Martha is pertinent for all times: "Mary has chosen the better part." Although our lives are rightly busy, we should also play the role of Mary--quietly listening to Jesus--and we can do this by learning how to pray in silence.
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The Assumption and the Coronation of Our Lady give us a glimpse of her heavenly glory. Mary's holiness and glorification are a reflection of the glory and splendor of God. By contemplating her eternal radiance, we are bolstered with joyful hope and encouraged to "shine like stars" in the midst of the world.
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The virtue of temperance or moderation is essential to loving God. To love God above all things, our desires and enjoyment of everything else need to be under control. Temperance brings order and health to the soul, freeing it to give God and others more importance. Performing small acts of self denial, thereby restraining our thirst for pleasure, gives us a chance to find our joy and happiness in God himself.
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The Gospels reveal to us the richness of Jesus's humanity. Jesus is interested in all sorts of people and all kinds of activities. He deals with people personally, respectfully and with tenderness. His human experience is fraught with all that we ourselves experience in life: fatigue and frustration, sadness and joy, friendship and loneliness, anger and, in his own way, even sin. Getting to know Jesus's humanity makes it easier for us to talk with him in prayer. Knowing that he lived a human life like ours assures us that he "gets us", that he understands what we are going through in our lives.
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Jesus takes five loaves and two fish from a boy and multiplies them to feed a crowd of thousands. When we trust him, Jesus takes our good will and our meager personal resources and similarly multiplies them to help us and others. Fortunately, faith is something we can grow in by choosing to do so. It is a free human act. By admitting our limitations and weakness and then confidently trying our best to do his will, Jesus makes up the difference between our insufficiency and the great things he wants us to do.
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Our Lord Jesus calls Christians the "salt of the earth" and "the light of the world." The presence of believing Christians is fundamental for the health and salvation of humanity. Realizing the gravity and urgency of our mission, we should put aside all division and distractions and commit ourselves to living our Catholic faith. This demands daily trust in God, daily repentance from sin and daily conversion towards true charity.
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The question of our personal identity is crucial to life. Our identity is tied to our closest relationships and our life’s mission. The deepest truth of who we are, however, is something we find in God and receive from Him, not something we have to figure out entirely on our own. By living the life God wants for us, we become our true selves and discover our true names.
On the Feast of St. Josemaria, we reflect on one of his most important teachings: the sanctification of work. After their conversion, the early Christians were encouraged to continue living the same life which God had already given them. St. Josemaria encourages us to do the same. Work is a blessing from God and key to a happy, fulfilled life. Working well is a condition for offering our work to God, thus making it holy and sanctifying ourselves and others in the process. Our life of prayer is an essential element in sanctifying our work, without times of intense prayer we cannot turn work into prayer.
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In the middle of a violent storm, the apostles find Jesus asleep in the boat. This divine sleep of the Son of God teaches us important lessons: the need for rest, the importance of trust in God during difficulties, and the great care that God our Father exercises over us. Only by trusting in God's power and fatherly protection in and through times of trial will we experience our own resurrection to new life. Only by trusting when times are hard do we come to really believe that God is our Father.
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Jesus' Sacred Heart reveals the depth of his love for us. Opened on the Cross, streams of blood and water poured out from Jesus' Heart. Our own love for God hinges on our having a heart full of compassion, concern, and a practical spirit of service towards others. As disciples of Jesus, we should be known for our love and care for each other and for all people. Only by growing in charity will we truly imitate Jesus, our model and our Lord. If not, our prayer life runs the risk of being inauthentic and hypocritical.
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The mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of God's inner life. Revealing it to us in Jesus Christ, God shares with us his own deep intimacy so that we can know and love him. The Trinity is also a mystery in which every Christian is enveloped. By the work of the Holy Spirit, we are made children of God the Father in God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
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On Pentecost we invite the Holy Spirit into our hearts and lives. The Holy Spirit is God's great gift to us. Himself the Love of God, we can use his presence to love God and others. "The Lord, the giver of Life", the Holy Spirit can shake us out of lukewarmness and complacency. Becoming good students of the Holy Spirit, we learn to enjoy and use his spiritual gifts and fruits.
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The month of May is Mary's month. The Church teaches and lives an extraordinary love for Mary, our Mother. This month is an opportunity to entrust big, important intentions and problems to Our Lady's loving care and intercession.
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For our 100th episode, we reflect on St. Joseph the Worker. Providing and caring for Jesus and Mary was Joseph's most urgent reason for working and working well. Loving God and others should also be a primary motive in our daily working lives. Joseph's experience of being with Jesus in his workshop taught him to appreciate the great dignity of his work, to make room for Jesus in his way of working, and to work in harmony with God in his every action.
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The Holy Mass makes present Jesus' Resurrection as well as his sacrifice on the Cross. The Body of Christ, as a resurrected body, is a gift that is given to others. To receive our Lord is to become like him and moves us to imitate his goodness.
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Special thanks go to Quinn Grieco the younger for supporting this podcast.
On Divine Mercy Sunday, we reflect on Jesus's message of peace to the Apostles in the upper room on Easter Sunday. He brings them peace and joy when they are afraid and sad. He gives them and us the means to return to peace, the sacrament of confession. God's Mercy is powerful and enduring, only our pride can keep us from experiencing its marvelous effects.
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Jesus's Resurrection is the culmination of his victory over sin and death. In his death and his rising to new life Jesus defeats Satan, the great enemy of God and humanity. The Resurrection proves that God's love for us is undefeated and truly invincible. In any battle that God wants us to fight, we can be fully confident of eventual and joyful victory. Happy Easter!
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For the music see https://open.spotify.com/album/5XqqbnE7ywxlAPO9jXBACh?si=DYb0d5L0RfO50xGiLl_tRQ
For last year's (calmer) Easter meditation, see https://comeaway.buzzsprout.com/936226/3358177-loving-much or on Apple podcasts at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/loving-much/id1503216953?i=1000471451374
"Behold the man." These words of Pontius Pilate are an unwitting invitation to contemplation. To behold Jesus in his passion is to see much more than meets the eye. The cross reveals God's judgment of the world, a judgment at once harsh and hopeful. The staggering mystery of good Friday is the mystery of the suffering and death of God himself.
For St. John Henry Newman's stunning sermon, see: https://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume6/sermon6.html
For the musical intro and outro, "Crosses to Bear," see my brother's album: https://open.spotify.com/album/5XqqbnE7ywxlAPO9jXBACh?si=DYb0d5L0RfO50xGiLl_tRQ
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Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane is a model of Christian prayer. His prayer is simple, honest, and focused on God. He perseveres in trusting petition and is eventually strengthened by his heavenly Father. The Agony in the Garden teaches us the importance of fidelity to our own prayer life. We need to pray and in a mysterious way God needs our prayer.
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When Mary says "yes" at the Annunciation, the divine Word becomes flesh. The mystery of the Incarnation entails a wondrous exchange of natures. God takes on our human nature in order to have us share in his divine nature. God became one of us so that we could become like him. This lowering of almighty God to share in our human experience and our limitations is very personal. He did it for you and me, for my good and for yours.
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On the Feast of St. Joseph, we reflect on his courage in accepting the unique responsibilities entrusted to him by God. This courage was bolstered by his trust in God and in God's plan. Joseph didn't have to understand everything to be faithful to God's will. His determination to love and protect Mary and Jesus is tied to his flexibility and detachment with respect to his own plans.
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As Good Friday approaches, we reflect on Jesus' death on the Cross. In his Passion and death, Jesus turns suffering into love. Love gives his suffering meaning and makes it fruitful. Jesus invites us to likewise accept suffering as a means to loving God and others. Suffering is unavoidable in this life, the real question is what will we do with it?
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The story of the prodigal son's older brother is a cautionary tale for committed Christians.
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Jesus' parable of Lazarus and the rich man warns us of the danger of indifference. Greed, gluttony, and vanity can all make us miss out on seeing the needs of others.
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Shortly before his death on Calvary Jesus is transfigured in glory on Mount Thabor. Our spiritual lives have similar peaks and valleys. This is no accident but an important part of God's will for us. Learning how to use the peaks to navigate the valleys is a lesson we can learn from Jesus and the apostles' experience on Thabor and on Calvary.
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Today we commemorate the establishment of the Papacy, the moment when Jesus appointed Peter as the rock upon which the Church is built giving him great authority. During Lent, this is a reminder to pray for the Pope by offering some of our Lenten sacrifices for him.
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Before he begins his public life of preaching, Jesus spends forty days fasting in the desert. After this time of fasting, he is tempted by the Devil. In Lent, we imitate Our Lord's forty days of prayer and fasting in the desert solitude. The desert is a place free of distractions, where we come face to face with ourselves and with God. Jesus' undergoing temptation reveals to us the hidden value of our own trials and temptations.
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Lent is an excellent opportunity for conversion. Turning away from our selfishness and disciplining the needs of our bodies, our souls and our spirits receive a new strength and vitality. Our ability to focus in prayer and in life can be revitalized especially by limiting our tendency to curiosity, distraction and excessive entertainment.
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Mystically united in the Body of Christ, Christians have the great consolation of depending on the intercession of the Saints. The Communion of the Saints is also a call to responsibility. Since we are all spiritually connected, our individual effort to live the Faith well supports all other members of Christ's Body.
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In the Gospel of St. John, Jesus says, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." In the Christian life, the central attitudes of Jesus become more and more our own. At the core of Jesus's personality, we find his love for doing his Father's will. This makes him a beloved son, in whom the Father "is well pleased." Our union with Jesus leads us to seek out and accomplish God's will for us day by day.
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The great commandment is to love God "with all of your mind, with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength." Adoration is how we love God most directly as God. This humble recognition of God's holiness, transcendence, and radical goodness is essential for our lives as Christians. Like most things, however, we have to learn to adore God by practicing it. We need to enter into the presence of God in our prayer, be still, and "know that he is God."
During the stressful and uncertain moments of Holy Thursday, Jesus tells his disciples to trust in God and in Him. This is the solution to having a troubled heart: a heart dominated by fear, worry and anxiety. Our trust in God involves trusting in his Providence. Providence is God's governance of the world and his guiding it to a good end. Four key principles of our faith reveal to us that it is impossible to trust in God's Providence too much.
Jesus stresses the importance of humility for being "great" and even "first" in the Kingdom of God. Humility is hard to come by, however, because pride is not easily overcome. The road to deep humility is a often a painful one, but there is also a shortcut called gratitude.
In Jesus's Baptism we see Jesus doing something unnecessary and in a sense unfair. He takes on the role of a sinner, allowing John to baptize him with his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. At the beginning of his public life, this event foreshadows our redemption at the end of Jesus's life--his death on the cross. Jesus loves us by lowering himself, forgetful of his status and his rights, giving himself in a way that is beyond all necessity and human logic. Christian life is an invitation to do the same.
Recorded 12/31/20, New Year's Eve. Each year begins with the Feast of Mary, Mother of God. The greatest of Our Lady's titles, her motherhood is a cause of wonder, hope, and encouragement for Christians and the world. Humanity begins again in Mary and we can begin again in her Son who comes to bring us new life. Jesus shares everything with us, even his Mother.
How wonderful it must have been for the Shepherds from Bethlehem to enter the stable on Christmas night ! Our times of prayer this Christmas are our own chance to be close to the baby Jesus, to speak softly with Mary and Joseph, to be wrapped up in the mystery of God present in the Child. The warm light of the fire in the stable lets us see and welcome into our lives him who is the Light of Life.
We can join Mary and Joseph on their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The divine adventure that they were on was filled with trust in God, which counteracted their natural concerns and fears. The silent presence of Jesus within his Mother's womb was a source of wonder, love, and prayer for Mary and Joseph. Jesus's silent presence in Mary and his silent sleep in the manger has a profound meaning for times of spiritual dryness.
Advent is a perfect time to develop the virtue of hope. Christian hope is a powerful force because it is based on God's power and care for us. Hope is the certain expectation of good things from God and the strength of waiting for them to come from his hand. Christian desire is shaped by hope. In hope, our trust in God goes as far as trusting his vision of our happiness and well-being even beyond our own view of the matter.
The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady is a wonderful occasion for prayer. Our Lady's special favor with God is a reflection of his generosity and love for us. Bernadette of Lourdes' encounter with Mary helps us to deal personally with our Lady as she truly is: a loving mother and a teacher of prayer.
John the Baptist is a key figure in Advent. His call to penance prepares us for the coming of Christ, our redeemer and savior. A key to being redeemed and saved is our recognition of our own sinfulness. Only by admitting our need for Christ will we truly encounter him come Christmas time.
On this Thanksgiving weekend, we take time to reflect on gratitude. Gratitude is an essential act of prayer. Being grateful is closely linked to joy and freedom from sadness and despair. The grateful soul needs humility, temperance and chastity to continually recognize all of the gifts that come from God.
For the study on gratitude and well-being, please visit: https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/how-to-flourish
Although we might avoid thinking of it, we all know that this life is passing. Reflecting on this truth gives life its proper perspective. One day we will die and pass into eternity. Living a life of faith, hope, and charity will make us ready for that moment. The prospect of eternal life can help make us resilient, daring and loving in this life.
Jesus shares his compassionate concern for the world with us, his disciples. To help him feed the crowd, however, we need to give all that we have while receiving everything from him. Times of crisis are opportunities to put our hope in the Lord God, who made heaven and earth.
Contemplating the great multitude of saints in heaven, we realize the power of God to change and purify us. From heaven the saints speak to us of the primacy God should have in our lives. The purification necessary to be in heaven comes from our acceptance of the cross.
The ascetical struggle--a true fighting spirit--is a key element of following Christ. While the Christian's battlefield is mainly an internal one, the goodness of the world itself depends on our willingness to fight against sin and the suggestions of the devil. To refuse to fight is worse than being defeated, it is to desert ranks and make things worse.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus promises us "the fullness of joy" if we keep his commandments. Reflecting on his relationship to God the Father, we can ascertain several aspects of Christ's own joy, a joy which he shares with us. This helps us to avoid recourse to false joys and teaches us some key ingredients to true happiness.
Zacchaeus's encounter with Jesus is a great model for our own relationship with Our Lord in prayer. By overcoming obstacles to meet Jesus, Zacchaeus is rewarded with the joy of Jesus's presence in his life and the experience of a radical conversion. We too need to identify and confront obstacles to our prayer life, placing ourselves clearly in our Lord's presence. The payoff is well worth the effort.
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Having the true God as our personal God is a great accomplishment and privilege. The worship of false gods can take various forms. In order to be truly human and to love God as he deserves, we need to identify and cast out our idols.
Jesus's encounter with the Samaritan woman poses the question of our appreciation of God. By prayer, silence, study, and conversion we can come to a greater sense of awe and wonder at God's grandeur and presence in our life.
Although difficult, humility is liberating and beautiful. Since the truth sets us free, humility is a condition for having Jesus as our savior. Acceptance of our neediness and limitations is a sure path to trust and love.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." What a difference it makes to know that Jesus is present within us! Ours is a God who loves us, understands us, and wants to help us. And he doesn't do this from a far distance, he is more present to us than we are to ourselves. With him present in our soul, we need never be alone.
The Assumption of Our Lady is one of God's wonderful works. It provides an opportunity for us to increase our faith in God and to contemplate our Lady's presence with her Son in heaven.
Our Faith teaches us that the Holy Mass makes present the sacrifice of Our Lord on the cross. Keeping this in mind during the Mass and during the day is an effective means of union with Jesus.
The radical reality and transcendence of God is often forgotten or overlooked. Remembering and reflecting on the greatness of God is key to understanding our own identity as his children and disciples.
The Word of God is a powerful reality. Nourishing ourselves with it through reading, reflection, and prayer is a sure-fire way to change our lives.
The calling of St. Matthew teaches us about our own Christian vocation. We need to see Christ look at us, hear him call us, and follow him into a new life with him.
A poor widow wins Jesus's praise by giving "all that she had to live on." In doing so she becomes radically dependent on God. Jesus's image of the vine and the branches teaches us a similar lesson.
Jesus compliments Nathanael for his lack of "guile." Sincerity and authenticity are virtues pleasing to God. They are also a way to let him love us.
To love God above all things is to strive to be pleasing to him. One of the things which delights God is our trust in him.
On the Feast of St. Josemaria, we reflect on Jesus's presence in our ordinary lives and work.
The Feast of the Sacred Heart helps us to imitate Christ's love, meekness, and compassion.
The real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament reveals his humility and his tremendous love for us.
Christians have always run to Our Lady in difficult times. Her Visitation to Elizabeth reveals the secret to her greatness.
When the Holy Spirit descends on Pentecost Sunday he comes as wind and fire. What does this coming mean for you and I?
As Christians, Christ's presence should touch our entire experience and all of our thoughts.
During these challenging times patience is a key virtue in our imitation of Christ. Praying about Christian patience can help us to live it.
Witnessing Jesus teach the crowds who followed him, we learn the secrets of a deep and resilient joy.
In the Gospel, Jesus teaches us key ways to grow in faith. Desiring greater faith, asking for it, and acting with faith are all practical ways of increasing our faith.
Mary Magdalene's encounter with the Risen Christ as a model for dealing with loss, loving God, and putting prayer first.
Our forced isolation and deprivation have a silver lining. Christ's prayer in the gospels leads us to the wonderful discovery that God is truly our possession and treasure.
Accompanying Jesus in an eventful trip across the Sea of Galilee, we see the trust in Him that our faith makes possible.
This time of isolation and fear over the coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity to improve our personal relationship with God.
Some ideas for living Lent well. What is Lent really all about? What does it mean to repent and have a new heart?