Praying in Humility and Mercy

Is it possible to pray out of misery without falling into self-pity?   The question, posed by one of our readers, indicates a grave evil confronted in prayer.   Misery is the demeaning absence of God’s love, a love we have rejected.  Without the love God created us to know, we are restless and in our restlessness we are inclined to mistake our own bloated egos for God.  The gravity of such self-occupation is a perilous... Read More

Blessed Angela di Foligno: Resting in Crucified Love

“You are I and I am you.”  (Words spoken to Blessed Angela di Foligno as recorded in Memorial, Chapter IX taken from Angela of Foligno: Complete Works, trans. Paul Lachance, O.F.M., in Classics of Western Spirituality, New York: Paulist Press (1993) 205.) These are words that Blessed Angela di Foligno believed the Risen Lord addressed to her. An early 14th century Franciscan Tertiary, her devotion to the humanity... Read More

The Glory of Christ Crucified

The Cross of Christ brings His glorious grace into the focus of contemplation.  It is a difficult mystery to dwell on.  The heart sometimes finds itself weary and sometimes even too discouraged to fix its gaze on the agony of the Lord.  This is where frequent confession and humble examination of conscience can help the practice of mental prayer – which is a humbled gaze of the heart on the mercy of God. Oftentimes,... Read More

Pope Francis and the Pathway to Easter

Pope Francis was just elected and we look forward to his message to the Universal Church in the coming days.  He is a man of deep prayer and a man of profound concern for the poor.  At the beginning of Lent, he made an impassioned plea to the clergy and religious of Argentina, “The Kingdom of God may need our hearts torn by the desire for conversion and for the love, the breaking forth of grace and the effective gesture... Read More

Forsake Not the Discipline

“Forsake not the discipline” These words are reported as among the very first and very last teachings of St. Antony of the Desert by his spiritual son, St. Athanasius.   The Christian life is not something we master – but it does give us everything we need to master ourselves in the new and unrepeatable circumstances each day, each moment, brings.  Every day we must choose to begin to live the Christian... Read More

Spiritual Liberty in the Night

In order to secure our true liberty, even while we were enslaved to sin, Christ suffered the night of death and ransomed us by His blood.   This is why the Lord respects human freedom, even when it is the source of great sorrow.   Aware of our frailty, God does not overpower our freedom but delights to work through it in a very gentle and beautiful way.   As a result, it is easy to frustrate His work in us.  At the same... Read More

Should I convert to Catholicism?

Q: Dear Father John, I am not Catholic. I consecrated myself to the Lord after reading St. Augustine’s Confessions. I was very involved with a protestant/charismatic church for many years and received much edification through those years among faithful followers. I have tried to attend Mass many times but the service is so very different that I have a hard time adjusting to the formal ceremony as my church experience... Read More

Dan’s Journey Home – Here’s the Video

Dear Friends, thank you for the outpouring of encouragement from those of you who were able to watch the Journey Home show on EWTN on Monday! It is incredibly moving to hear how a simple telling of the testimony of God’s work in our lives can have such an amazing impact. For the sake of those who missed it, I have included it below. Let me know what you think. Also, for the many who have asked, this is a good example... Read More

From hatred to hope – one man’s journey into the Catholic Church…

Between beating my mother into the emergency room and firing a handgun in our home, my stepfather attempted to convince me that Catholicism was the one true faith. As you might imagine, his approach wasn’t very effective. Recently I was able to share a short version of my conversion story (on an Evangelical/Protestant radio station of all places) with the audience of Focus on Life Radio in Birmingham Alabama. If... Read More