Category: Mystical

“What if the priest remembers me?” “Will the priest tell other people my sins?” “Wait…I have to go to Confession again?” We’ve fielded these and all sorts of other delightful questions from our oldest children as they’ve prepared for their First Reconciliation and their First Communion. It’s been a powerful experience, as parents, to not… Continue reading Teaching Your Children the Difference Between Mistakes and Sins

Editor’s note: This is part 26 of a series, “The Kingdom of Grace.” Part 25 can be found here. The primary cause of the growth of grace is the Eucharist, and receiving holy communion has many wonderful effects in us. It comes as a surprise to many people to hear that the Eucharist is a… Continue reading The Effects of Holy Communion

Below is one miracle recounted through the intercession of St. Therese. On March 3, 1972, Nogent-le-Roi’s firefighters took me to the hospital in Dreux after I fell off a horse. I had lost consciousness, and my scalp was bleeding profusely. Two days later, I was still unconscious. My condition had worsened, and an ambulance drove… Continue reading A Miracle of St. Therese –

The opening of the Book of Isaiah is provocative, especially for those of us who hold the Liturgy in high esteem, as well we should. However, it is possible for us to distort even great things like the Mass and the sacraments. Let’s look at the reading and then draw a few teachings from it:… Continue reading The Call to Integrity in Worship

One of the most common depictions of Jesus in Western art outside the crucifixion is the depiction of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. All of these depictions show Our Lord’s closeness, tenderness, and love toward all of us. Out of the varying depictions of the Sacred Heart, there is one unique feature of all… Continue reading Loving With the Sacred Heart of Jesus

God is our Father. Jesus presents himself as God’s own Son. He speaks of God as his Father who desires to become our Father. All fatherhood derives from God the Father and has its meaning from him (cf. Ephesians 3:14-21). And what do we see in God’s Fatherhood? He is radically different from the counterfeit… Continue reading Fatherhood and Subsidiarity – SpiritualDirection.com

That others may grow holier than I, provided that I become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. (The Litany of Humility) June is a month of celebrations, especially fathers, school graduations, and marriages. Graduations and marriages in particular inaugurate a season of change. Years of parenting, choices made… Continue reading Launching into Jesus’ Sacred Heart

In light of Sunday’s Feast of Corpus Christi, I would like to recall the need for the reverent and worthy reception of Holy Communion and to develop an explanation for the Church’s practice of what some call “closed Communion.”  Not everyone who uses this terminology means it pejoratively, although some do. But to some extent it… Continue reading On the Need to Receive the Eucharist Worthily

The Real Presence Presence of God – “Hidden God, devoutly I adore Thee, truly present beneath these veils: all my heart subdues itself before Thee, since all before Thee faints and fails” (cf. Adoro Te Devote). MEDITATION “Verbum caro factum est” (Jn 1:14). The Incarnation of the Word, the ineffable mystery of the merciful love… Continue reading The Real Presence – Divine Intimacy Meditation

There is an old spiritual that says, “My God is so high you can’t get over Him. He’s so low you can’t get under Him. He’s so wide you can’t get around Him. You must come in, by and through the Lamb.” It’s not a bad way of saying that God is “other.” He is… Continue reading One and One and One are One. A Homily For Trinity Sunday