Sunday Readings for March 26, the 4th Sunday of Lent The Lion of Judah is no tame lion. Neither is he predictable. While walking along the streets of Jerusalem one day, Jesus sees a common enough sight in the Holy…
The Man born Blind
The Stations of the Cross – A Meditation
“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole earth, until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying: “Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why hast thou…
Temptation
“I will announce,” says the king, “what the Lord has declared. He said to me: ‘You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask, and I will give you all the nations; the whole earth will be yours…’”…
Your Shack and Mine
Everybody has a shack: a place of pain, regret, and what-ifs, a canyon of terrible sadness and hidden rage at unsustainable loss, the kind of loss that makes you wish you’d lost everything. Everybody has a shack, a place you…
Spiritual Direction
Faith is awareness of God as a personal God, with our personal response to the love in which we have come to believe. It is a personal encounter, a contact with the divine Persons into which we are taken by…
Three Questions for Lent and Beyond
Popular Catholic speaker Matthew Kelly often begins his presentations with this phrase: “There’s genius in Catholicism.” That couldn’t be truer. There are so many things about the Church that make perfect sense and one of them is the calendar. The…
Have a Chestertonian Marriage
A few years ago, a former student invited me to lunch. He was discerning the married life and he wanted my advice as a married man. I was shy to give it. It is not because I have a bad…
For freedom He set us free
“For freedom Christ has set us free.” (Gal 5:16) Why has Christ set us free? For freedom. Think about that; parse it. Christ did not set us free for some other reason and we got freedom as a bonus or…
Lent is Time to Get in Shape through Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving
Christianity is not a cheap religion. Being a Christian is difficult, and it takes sustained effort. Yes, Jesus freely offers salvation (we do not need to “earn” God’s love), but that doesn’t mean living a Christian life is easy: the…
Create A Clean Heart In Me, O God
This year I celebrate the beginning of Lent, and I do mean celebrate. Yes, it is a time to turn back to God, to repent and atone and grow in virtue, and repentance does entail sorrow and contrition. But I…