In his book of spiritual exercises, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the Superior General of the Jesuits, tells the story of a staretz, or spiritual advisor of the Eastern Church, who yearned “to begin the Our Father with the last verse, so that one might become worthy to finish the prayer with the initial words – ‘Our…
It is a constant article of faith that we live in the promise of Christ’ Advent , first in the form of his incarnation as a human, then in his continual presence in our lives through the Holy Spirit as enunciated in the Gospel of St John (“I go away, and I will come to…
These were the gardens of betrayal, but also the gardens of redemption and resurrection “they went to a place which was called Gethsemane” (Mk 14:32), “across the Kidron valley, where there was a garden”(John 18:1) “In the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb where no one…
The Donkey When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil’s walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve,…
Throughout Jesus’ journey during the Holy Week into Jerusalem, Jesus interacted with his disciplines who were naysayers because they could not or would not go the extra mile with the Lord for his cause. Recall that the term “extra mile” was itself a literary gem from the Messiah Himself: If anyone forces you to go…
Jesus was tempted in the desert at the start of his 3-year ministry. The mystery of God’s relationship with men and women, as we grapple with our existence and purpose in this world is experienced by Jesus in the first retreat in the desert. However, as Jesus is not man but the Son of God,…
Not uncommonly, it is not the right answer that creates clarity but the correct question that is being asked Why do you persecute me? (Damascus) What are you looking for? (Bethany, by the River Jordan) Who do you say I am? Who do men say that the Son of man is? (Caesarea Philippi) Do you love…
Let’s be wary of false prophets, in these troubled times, when the forces of good versus evil are in constant play. Indeed it was Jesus who declared to Pontius Pilate during his trial at Jerusalem that “my kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of the world, my servants would fight, that…
Not long afterwards, Lewis read Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man (1925) and was surprised to find the whole Christian outline of history making sense. An even stronger blow at his efforts to keep God at bay came, when he wrote in Surprised by Joy, Early in 1926 the hardest boiled of all the atheists I ever knew…
Whereas the angel “came” to Mary (Lk 1:28) , he merely appears to Joseph in a dream – admittedly a dream that is real and reveals what is real. Once again, this shows us an essential quality of the figure of Saint Joseph: his capacity to perceive the divine and his ability to discern. Only…