Who would not get depressed when it seems you are unable to pray anymore, and the Scriptures that meant so much before move you no more, and your moral behaviour seems to be deteriorating with each passing day? It is essential that, at a time when it is so difficult to find a competent spiritual [...]
Romantic love is a great thing, but not the greatest thing. Without covenant love, eros becomes a god, then a demon, and finally a fire that burns those who refuse to give it a home. Instead, pursue the greater love of—and love for—the Lord. Valentine’s Day beckons, our annual corporate celebration of eros, even though [...]
True love makes one humble. All of a sudden our weakness, misery, and imperfection flash up before our minds, but with no depressing effect. We see our mistakes with the wish to unveil them to the loved one, and this unveiling is coupled with the wish to beg for his or her help in order [...]
God’s love is deepest in us, as the very ground of our being. It is here in our deepest self that our desire to love and be loved that will only ultimately be satisfied in God, rises to enter into him. Inspired by and supported with as much of God’s love that our weakness can [...]
Every man is his own pope and philosopher-king on the Internet, where our semi-formed and semi-informed opinions are cast as absolutes. Convinced of our perfect knowledge and infallible righteousness, we denounce and demean in harsh, uncharitable terms the arguments of others, and even their very persons. “Minds are conquered not by arms, but by love [...]
All must go through purification to attain union with God. In this life it is called the Dark Night of the Soul; in the next life, it is called Purgatory. No one can avoid it. Mystical theology teaches how this purification is brought about in this life. When studying Philosophy, I had a brief flirtation [...]
The Transfiguration on Mount Tabor was a pre-enactment of what would happen to Jesus after the Resurrection, when he was glorified. The event not only pre-enacts what happened to Christ at his glorification, but what will happen to us too when the Holy Spirit penetrates us as Jesus was penetrated by the glory of God. [...]
If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:20) Developments in ultrasonic technology help us to clearly see that an unborn child is a human life deserving our love. Yesterday, on [...]
The waiting room was empty at 11:40 that day, that day of the appointment, the last appointment. Jack and I had been coming and going weekly for a good three months. There was first the diagnosis and then the treatment, palliative radiation. The cancer was invasive, cartilage in his right nostril which had expanded the [...]
How, exactly, does the Church propose to bring Christ to the world, demonstrating His presence among men in order that she might then transport them home to Heaven? Let us try to imagine a Church filled with Christ, overflowing with His presence and power. Not too difficult, is it? Is that not the customary, immemorial even, [...]
It was after about eighteen months of perseverance that something quite dramatic happened. Not only that but it was quite evident to me that it was not the “numinous” that I was experiencing, but it was God, at least the experience of his love that was enveloping me. The whole atmosphere at the student house [...]
It is a truth of the Church universally acknowledged that loving God is the end for which we are created. God’s love alone makes sense of and makes meaningful my life, your life. And yet loving God can seem difficult—not, to be sure, because God has loved us too little but rather because we have [...]
No task can substitute for love itself. The purpose of life is a person, and eventually that’s all that’ll be left. We will rest, truly rest, not in inactivity but with a person to love. When was the last time you reached “Inbox Zero?” As the name suggests, it’s the state of bliss that comes [...]
In the modern world, love is often ignored or perverted into lust. When we talk of governance, when we talk of relationships, when we talk of societal structures, we never mention love. What happened? How could the modern West be so very different from the ancient and medieval West? One of my greatest joys in [...]