Category: Mystical

This article was a homily given on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, at a Votive Mass of Saint Joseph at the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC during the Apostoli Viae Investiture Retreat. Readings for Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time: Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16; Matthew 11:25-27 Something that I… Continue reading Spiritual Childhood and Demonic Pride

When news broke that the Supreme Court was planning on overturning Roe v. Wade, the protests began almost immediately. In some, women showed up at Catholic Masses dressed in the famous “Handmaid’s Tale” costumes in protest of what they saw as the Catholic Church’s misogynistic meddling in American politics. What they missed is the fact… Continue reading Dressing Like a Handmaid: The Brown Scapular

“K” was possessed. She was consecrated to the Evil One by her biological parents: one was a witch and the other a Satanist. Her upbringing was brutal including a drug habit foisted upon her by her mother and repeated rapes by men. Both biological parents died young. K was, by the grace of God, eventually… Continue reading Exorcist Diary: Do Saints Choose Us?

St. Paul declares that we were called to freedom and that we should use our freedom “to serve one another through love” Galatians 5:13.  He is aware that we could use our freedom to “devour one another” 5:14.    To serve or to consume one another designates the great battle for life and freedom is… Continue reading Life, Liberty and America – SpiritualDirection.com

All across the United States on the Fourth of July, we celebrate freedom. In particular, freedom from tyranny, from government that is not representative, from unchecked power, and from unaccountable sovereigns. Yet as Christians, we cannot overlook that there are ways of understanding freedom today that are distorted, exaggerated, and detached from a proper biblical,… Continue reading Freedom Can Only Exist Within Limits: A Fourth of July Meditation

To the Future—with Confidence Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Is your outlook on life habitually a hopeful one, or do you usually expect the worst to happen? The nature of our temperament, whether cheerful or gloomy, depends to a great extent upon the state of our emotional and physical health. A person who… Continue reading You Are Called to Greatness

Visions and Revelations in theDevelopment of the Spiritual Life A brief survey of the evolution of the highest spiritual life in the light of Teresian teaching has brought out how absolutely erroneous it is to characterize the mystical life as a life full of visions and revelations. For St. John of the Cross, there is… Continue reading Visions and Revelations – Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen

Summoned by a Crucifix A three-inch crucifix pendant loomed large around a woman’s neck in the yellow cinderblock basement that housed my weekly Al-Anon meeting. As stories were shared around the circle, my eyes kept going back to the crucifix and the woman. A stark contradiction – the sadness of Jesus on the Cross and… Continue reading “This is All True”: The Story of a Conversion, Part 1

C.S. Lewis once wrote that God “whispers in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain.” Years ago, l was living a “season of shouting”—when I was wrestling with deep spiritual longing and angst, but not yet recognizing God’s voice in my own cries. I had been working for the church for many years, as a… Continue reading Love in All the Wrong Places: On Leaving Behind the “Land of Transactions”

Over the years, I cannot count the number of times that I heard words like, “Your father is the best!” or “I love your Dad!”  My dad was the kind of father that most of my friends wished they’d had. In my eyes, he was John Wayne, Charles Ingalls, and Moses rolled into one. As… Continue reading A Lasting Inheritance: Reflecting on Fatherhood