C’mon!! Can there really be such a thing? People joyful while they’re suffering? Impossible! A few years ago I received some devastating news. I never thought I’d overcome that dark period in my life. A deep sorrow overtook my heart….
Joy in Suffering: Only a Footprint Away
What Would Jesus Do?
Remember the bracelets and t-shirts from the WWJD fad of the 1990s? It is a great concept and a tremendous question which has been riding my mind lately as I delve deeper into my faith. We have the roadmap of…
The Role of Gab in the New Evangelization
G. K. Chesterton said, “The important thing for a country is that the men should be manly, the women womanly.” He was right. Women behaving like women – that is, using their feminine gifts – have the power to transform…
Entrusting My Faith Journey to Mary
Last week the Holy Father entrusted the Year of Faith and the Synod on the New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith to Mary, and it got me thinking: If the Successor of St. Peter is entrusting this…
The God-Shaped Hole
St. Augustine said, “We were made for You, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” The human heart is a puzzle, to be sure. But Augustine gives us the answer. To understand the profundity of…
John XXIII: Saint in the Age of Television
In 1958, a congenial old man, Angelo Roncalli, was elected to the chair of Peter. He was to be a caretaker pope, someone to keep the ship steady while the cardinals identified a more long-term leader. That smiling old man…
God Has Plans for Us
That the blessed and only ruler will make manifest at the proper time, the King of kings and Lord of lords. (1 Timothy 6:15) Recently I saw a post on Facebook basically asking, “If God has plans for us, why…
What is faith?
Last week, on October 11, we began the Year of Faith. Each time the Pope declares a “Year of…” I find it very interesting and exciting. It seems as if the declaration, this letter of whatever the year is, has…
The Tale of Two Men
Readings for October 14, 2012: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B He was curious. He had already fulfilled all the elementary requirements. He was a decent person who hadn’t killed anybody, had honored his parents, and would never think…
Communio
When Hans Urs von Balthasar was taking graduate courses in theology during the last century, he was said to have lamented after one class, “They’ve taken all the eros out of theology!” If you’ve read the first encyclical that our…