“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, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man. …[P]rayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Kingdom is ‘the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity … with the whole human spirit.’ Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because, through Baptism, we have already been united with Christ” (CCC 2564-2565).
This section of the blog is dedicated to topics related to prayer, worship, and liturgy.
May is a month in which we honor our mothers with the celebration with Mother’s Day. In the United States, this is held the second Sunday of May. But for centuries, May has been known as the month of Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ and our mother. In 2018 Pope...
“Yet whoever did accept him, those who believed in his name, he gave them the power to become the sons of God.”[i] “Do you not know that you are temples of the Holy Spirit?”[ii] In these many weeks of the Easter season and through the great Feast of the Ascension...
After the Resurrection, there are several accounts of appearances of the risen and glorified Lord to the Apostles. The Lord Jesus invites them to touch His Body and believe in the Resurrection. For this third Sunday of Easter, we hear this invitation again, “Then he...
“And Jesus said unto them, ‘With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer…’”[i] Holy Thursday is properly the celebration of the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of the Lord. With His face set like flint toward...
The Solemnity of the Annunciation reflects the profound reality of the mystery of the Incarnation in its first moment as the Blessed Virgin
gives her consent, “Let it be done (fiat in Latin) unto me as you have said.” In her Fiat, Mary says yes to the plan of the Incarnation and Redemption for all of us for all time, from the patriarchs that died before the coming of Christ to all persons who will ever live.
As we pass through these days of Lent, the Church places before our eyes the image of the beloved son. First, Abraham is asked to offer Isaac, who is the beloved son of Abraham’s old age. This offering in worship was a holocaust to the Lord, but the angel of the...
“Christ suffered for you to give you an example of how to follow in His footsteps.”[i] This word “example,” hypogrammon (ὑπογραμμὸν), means “a writing-copy, an example, pattern.”[ii] One way that Jesus gave us an example is in the temptations he faced in the...
Every year Christians should consider how they may grow closer to the Lord during the time of Lent. While the grace to even desire conversion first comes from the Lord drawing us to Himself, many times individuals will consider different practices to help turn their...
Sclerokardia is a condition of hardness of heart. The word sclero, from the Greek, means “hard”. We use this word in English for medical terms like arteriosclerosis or atherosclerosis referred to “hardening of the arteries” or scleroderma, which is a condition that...
The transforming power of the gaze of Jesus...Love's Vision This Christmas, I offer this reflection taken from a book written by Archbishop Luiz Martinez called Only Jesus. The first chapter of the book is called Love’s Vision. Let yourself be immersed in the...