By James J. Thompson Jr. | New Oxford Review. | Does God answer prayer? Christians respond to such a query with a mixture of bewilderment and irritation. Who but unbelievers and those of little faith would even think to pose the question? One need only turn to the Gospel of St. Luke to find Christ’s unequivocal… Read More Jacques Ellul’s ‘Prayer and Modern Man’
Carlo Carretto1910-1988 “How much I must criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you! You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than to anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence. You have given me much scandal and… Read More Love Letter to the Church. Carlo Carreto.
How to pray in moral anguish. Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene shows the way, “O Truth, light of my soul, do not permit the darkness to frighten me. You have allowed me to walk in it, and now I am in obscurity. But even from the darkness, even from there, I have loved You.… Read More Do not permit the darkness to frighten me.
The story is told of an archaeologist scholar who specialized in the earliest era of Christianity. He decided to take some students to visit ancient monasteries near the Sinai in Egypt. He was no believer. Upon arriving at one such site after a long journey he knocked on the entrance door hoping to be allowed… Read More The Scholar and the Abbot
The Imitation of ChristBy Thomas a Kempis, 15th century. Bk.1 ch.3 The Doctrine of Truth HAPPY is he whom Truth teacheth by itself, not by figures and words that pass, but as it is in itself.—PS. XVII. 36; IS. XXVIII. 26. Our opinion and our sense often deceive us and discover but little. What availeth… Read More Of the Knowledge of Truth
Updated with his full masterpiece: For the Bride below. John Michael Talbot (born May 8, 1954) is an American Catholic musician, author, television presenter and founder of a Third Order monastic community known as the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. Talbot was born into a Methodist family with a musical background in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and started learning to play the guitar… Read More Sunrise miracle, Daily
“May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the Saints, whatever good you do and whatever evil you endure, be for you a remedy for sin, an increase of grace, and the reward of eternal life. Go in peace”. — Traditional priestly prayer used with… Read More May the Passion Be For You A Remedy
The Judge Who Brought Compassion in the Courtroom Now Needs Your Prayers. By Colm Flynn, National Catholic Register, Feb.15 Judge Frank Caprio’s courtroom was more than a place of judgement — it became a place of mercy — and now, as he battles cancer, he needs our prayers. When Judge Frank Caprio peered over his… Read More Meet the Kindest Judge in America
Or, how a modern psychologist had it out for the Catholic Church and joined forces with the so-called Progressives to wreck her sacred tradition. Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of humanistic psychology and was known especially for his person-centered psychotherapy. Rogers was widely considered… Read More And the ‘Walls’ of Love Came Tumbling Down
I awakened this morning unexpectedly thinking of a painful absence, the absence of the sounds of Church bells, which, when we were young, summoned us to to prayer and Mass. Not that we always appreciated this when young to be sure. But it was always there. It was just there, like the rising and setting… Read More The Absence of the Bells
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” – Psalm 147:3 “Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.” – Jeremiah 17:14 A most beautiful offering for the sick of body, soul or mind. Robert Reed today is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of… Read More Rosary for the Sick. Sorrowful Mysteries.
”Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” (Prov. 19:21). “Having dismissed the multitude,He went into a mountain alone to pray.”—Matthew 14:23. By St. Alphonsus Liguori,Doctor of the Church. To preserve recollection of spirit or the constant union of the soul with God, three things are necessary:… Read More Silence, Solitude and the Presence of God
By Fr. Gabriel of St Mary Magalene, 1953 Grant, O Lord, that by Your grace I may persevere unto the end. 1. To become a saint, it is not enough to be courageous and patient and to practice the other virtues for a few days or a few months, or even for a few years.… Read More Perseverance
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”— Jn.1:5 “For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world, to condemn the world, but that… Read More Mary, The Good News and the ‘Book’ of the Meek
Countering Increasing Irreverence and Disrespect. By Gerard T. Mundy | New Oxford Review. April 2024. Gerard T. Mundy is a writer who teaches philosophy at a New York City university. The sacred territory of the Catholic altar, at which the Lord Himself is consecrated and the tabernacle holding the Lord is expected to repose, commands respect… Read More A “Cleansing of the Altar” Is Long Overdue
“The first time I saw Brother Lawrence, was upon the 3d of August, 1666. He told me that GOD had done him a singular favor, in his conversion at the age of eighteen. That in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time the leaves would be… Read More Brother Lawrence and the Presence of God
Galatians 2:20. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, who died… Read More Reparation
“It is the truth which is assailed in any age which tests our fidelity. It is to confess we are called, not merely to profess. If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are… Read More Confessing the Faith
By Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. Even without the presence of other causes, it is possible to pass from a state of sensible spiritual fervor to one of absolute aridity. This happens by the direct work of God which makes it impossible for the soul to pray with the help of the mind… Read More Aridity and Spiritual Progress
James 4:2: “you have not, because you ask not.“ The great Doctor of the Church, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, wrote, “The absolute necessity of prayer is taught throughout the Holy Scriptures, and by all the holy Fathers; while, on the other hand, I see that Christians are very careless in their practice of this great… Read More “Those who pray will be saved, those who do not will be lost”
I arise todayThrough a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,Through a belief in the Threeness,Through confession of the OnenessOf the Creator of creation. I arise todayThrough the strength of Christ’s birth and His baptism,Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,Through the strength of His… Read More The Prayer and Breast plate of St. Patrick Against All Harms
Their lives amazingly intersected. And he prayed in her convent’s chapel. Hear the story. —- Divine Mercy and the Lonely
By Saint Louis de Montfort, Doctor of The Church, great luminary of St. John Paul II, writes, “If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins “you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory” (1 Pet. 5:4). Even if you are on the… Read More The Rosary, Hope Even for Great Sinners
Fr. Robert Reed [today auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston and the president of the television network CatholicTV] prays the Sorrowful Mysteries for all who are physically or mentally suffering in our time, and for the dying.
Father most holy,I offer Thee the prayers, works,joys, and sufferings of this day by placing them in the holy and venerable hands of Jesus, the Eternal High Priest, and by saying, as He did upon entering the world, “Behold, I come to do Thy will” (Hebrews 10:9). For the sake of all His priests, [and… Read More A Morning Offering for Priests
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