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Modernity has trained us to use our senses for consumption rather than contemplation. Instead of engaging our senses to pull the beauty and meaning out of our lives, we increasingly use them as a means to score a momentary dopamine hit. When we do this, we are not only not using our senses in the ... Read more
Why is it so hard to make a genuinely well-crafted saint film? This is a question that has baffled my mind for as long as I could remember. I grew up during the great digital transition of cinema where access to filming equipment suddenly became massively cheaper and more available to the consumer market which ... Read
I have watched multiple priests leave the priesthood over the years, including the priest who baptized my godson. During the wake of 2018 and COVID, there were quite a few, which left many of us heartbroken. There is a balance that must be found when a priest leaves the priesthood. The Church allows priests to ... Read
Q&A WITH MYSTIC ALICJA LENCZEWSKA, PART 5 Continuing the theme of the fallen angels, I selected two long passages from the first volume of Alicja’s Journal, one from 1986 and the other from 1987. The abundance of words written during the mystical encounters may be surprising. It usually happens when the soul has advanc
Have you ever been duped? Fooled, tricked, deceived, conned, swindled? “You duped me O Lord!” That was Jeremiah’s complaint. Somewhere along the line, he must have gotten the idea in his head that the life of a prophet would win him friends, success, and honors. Instead, it won him derision and mockery. And why not? ..
Back in January, I was invited to lead a day-long workshop for Catholic school leaders in the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon. The topic that I was asked to address was “Catholic education as a healing ministry of the Church.” It is an important topic, and one that I have experienced, researched, written and spoken abo
Over the years, I have had the joy of republishing many of Fulton J. Sheen’s books. One day, while working on his 1937 classic, The Cross and the Beatitudes, I was asked by the editorial staff to come up with a creative subtitle for the book. After reading through Fulton Sheen’s analysis of how the ... Read more
When Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, he knew that the world he was asked to engage with was one of doubt, atheism, material acquisition, hate, violence, and war. Thus, he began his encyclical Deus Caritas Est with these words: In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance ..
There are two St. Augustines in the Catholic calendar, and both deserve to be much better known. And please, pronounce them correctly. (They aren’t the same!) The first is St. Augustine of Hippo, the great North African bishop, theologian, Doctor of the Church, and author of Confessions and The City of God. The second
Over the course of her two-thousand-year history, there have always been controversies and heresies within the Catholic Church. One of these is defiance and disobedience towards the papacy in the erroneous belief that one’s adherence to God exempts one from loyal obedience to Christ’s chosen Vicar on earth. What I find
“I will pray for you.” We say this often when we intend to intercede for others in their needs. But we hardly reflect on the grave obligation and power in those words. We fail to realize what bringing others’ needs before God and bringing God’s blessings to them really entails. The Canaanite woman in Matthew ... Read m
The Gospel frequently places realities beside one another that seem, at first, entirely disproportionate. In the preceding reflection, we considered Christ’s startling declaration that He had come to bring not peace but the sword. That sword is not opposed to the peace of Christ. It is the truth that cuts through false
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