It requires no great zeal in us, no great charity, to come to you at no risk, and entreat you to turn from the path of death, and be saved. It requires nothing great, nothing heroic, nothing saint-like; it does but require conviction, and that we have, that the Catholic Religion is given from God [...]
At Baptism, all of us became like Christ, and were entrusted with a mission like his as priest, prophet, and king. During this Easter season, may we rejoice in the gift of sharing this unique identity and mission with the resurrected Christ. Have you noticed any themes in the prayers at Mass this Easter season? [...]
Ambrose successfully drove out the Arian heresy from his diocese. The odds were often stacked against the saint. But in these difficulties, Ambrose relied on the spiritual weapons that Christ gave him. Imagine that your city has been breached by attackers. You are tasked with defending your homeland, but you have no weapons. What should [...]
Since we are not greater than our Master, the recourse He invokes is our recourse also: we can, like Him, call upon the name of the Lord, of the Father, and thus we will in the end be delivered from our enemies because we know the Father. John 15: 18-21 comes from the discourse of [...]
Peter Giersch's "Talking of Michelangelo" is an account of his trip to a French monastery to plunge into a week-long Ignatian retreat. But who wants to read about the inner musings of someone’s religious retreat? Happily, the most likely answer is: You do. Peter Giersch has been a French teacher, a catechist, a business entrepreneur [...]
Your very hands, once folded peacefully beneath the earth, will once again be vigorously poised up high to the praise of God. And in that eternal moment of sharing God’s perfect victory, we can even enjoy a most glorious high five with our triumphant Savior, our Lord, and our friend. After straining your whole being [...]
There are within all of us innumerable drives and urges that if allowed to rule would destroy us. If we are not consciously and daily engaged in the spiritual combat that calls upon us to act selflessly, then we will be unable to admit the New Man which is Christ, so that he can do [...]
If a democracy drifts into unlimited notions of freedom, the best course of action is not to strip citizens of freedom, but rather to educate them, so that they can correct any constitutional abuses that contributed or led the way to the abyss of nihilism. Introduction This essay will revisit the age-old concern with the [...]
The truth is that philosophy is not the apanage of the few. All may be equipped with the science of living, and one cannot be so equipped without a right, if inadequate, knowledge of the nature of things—at least, that is, of their nature as affecting human conduct. One who knows the ten commandments and [...]
For Christopher Dawson, there was the inflection point, the point of intersection where the enfleshment of God took place to fire the historical imagination. There could be no other event, no possible happening in the great sea of history to compare with the coming of God among us, pitching His tent in the midst of our [...]
Everything needed for evil to conquer was overthrown on Easter morning; of that there is no doubt. But every individual must live that conflict in themselves, even now. Matt 28: 8-15 tells us something about the power of a garden. The women emerged amazed from the tomb and started to run to tell the disciples [...]
Jesus retaining his wounds teaches us that the wounds we endure are not condemnations from a shameful past, but are the means by which God brings us to heaven. “Wait… his hand is in him!?” cried the boy. Kids were screaming, markers were flying, little girls were pretending to faint, all at the sight of this [...]
The sacrifice of Christ was totally effective. It could not be otherwise, given that He Who offered it was God. But it is important to grasp what it effected. Whatever it was meant to effect, it did effect. But what was it? At the moment of His death on Calvary, Christ Our Lord said, “It [...]
Several years ago, when I was in Europe leading a pilgrimage tour to England with Joseph Pearce, I learned that the Shroud of Turin was to be on display for veneration in Turin. After the pilgrimage in England I made my way to Italy where I was joined by a friend. After a few days [...]