The King's Son given to redeem a slave.1 Consideration of the human person may rightly (and surprisingly!) begin with God. Man is a created being, endowed with a spiritual soul. From philosophy we know that the soul is the “form” of the body, but what does this...
In this month in which we commemorate the great feast of All Saints, we are to remember that each of us is called to holiness, regardless of our state of life. We must all desire heaven, ultimate union with God. The Church gives us many agents, not the least of...
What is an indulgence? We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1471: The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance. "An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due...
November is a time when we remember those who have gone before us in the celebration of All Saints Day (November 1st) and All Souls Day (November 2nd). This makes November a special time to focus our attention on the reality of the Church as the Church Triumphant...
“He remained what he was; he took up what he was not…to make possible the kind of remedy that fitted our human need.” On the feast day of our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 15), one of the main themes in the second reading of the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the...
Take your son, your only son, whom you love…and offer him as a whole burnt sacrifice. These words, spoken to Abraham by God, must have been unbearable for him to hear. This was the child of promise, the son he loved, the sign that God would fulfill his word to make...
"Jesus came to make a way for us to heaven through the veil of His flesh" This quote comes from a passage from Saint Athanasius that has been with me over these past months. Saint Athanasius, reflecting on the structure of the Jerusalem temple, writes about the...
The Sacred Heart is “the symbol of the love with which Jesus continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings without exception” (CCC, Glossary). The term also refers to the human heart of Jesus, Whose humanity is substantially united to the Word of God, the...
Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves…
Some years ago, when I was doing my training as a nurse practitioner, I worked with a surgeon. During a laparoscopic procedure inside a patient’s abdomen, the surgeon was showing me different structures and helping to orient me to what we were looking at by way of a...