Spirituality

Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Last week I preached about Christ’s hands. The Canon of the Mass (Eucharistic Prayer I), describes Christ’s hands as holy and venerable. We could say His feet were holy and venera...

The Venerable Archbishop Sheen, soon to be known as Blessed Fulton Sheen, was a man of many gifts. We should add, however, that his gifts were lavish and reflected a most generous God. He was a clear-headed philosopher, a brilliant essayist, and possessed an illuminating way with words. He was not q...

Jesus walking on water and calling Peter to meet Him outside the boat—recorded in Matthew 14:22-33—is one of the most recognizable and memorable episodes in all the Gospels. It sticks in our minds, certainly, because it is an amazing miracle. It stands out also, I think, because so many of us identi...

Human beings of every generation have faced a particular direction for worship. This is true of most world religions of documented history. Muslims pray toward Mecca because it is the Qibla—the unified direction of worship commanded by Allah in the Quran. The ancient Jews would pray toward Jerusalem...

The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. I was reflecting recently on the many faces of sadness, grief, and sorrow during the recently concluded 2026 soccer World Cup. We saw grown men...

For as long as I can remember, I have loved St. Francis and St. Clare. When we were planning a trip to Italy, I convinced my husband to make Assisi one of our stops. It was every bit as beautiful and peaceful as people describe. But the greatest gift that I received from that trip was the realizatio...

This summer marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the martyrdom of Bl. Stanley Rother, the missionary priest from Oklahoma who was gunned down in 1981 by a government-backed death squad in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala. Bl. Stanley had served as missionary to the indigenous Tz’utujil for thirteen years...

Friendship Without Communion If the first part of this reflection considered the ship as a symbol of time and direction, the second part turns to the deeper human question: why do people who talk so much remain so unable to enter into communion? The characters in Let Them All Talk are brilliant, art...

Elon Musk, the famed billionaire tech mogul, is widely recognized for possessing some of the most innovative companies in the world. For many, Musk has everything one can ever dream of, with enough wealth to sustain anyone for several lifetimes. However, he made an intimate revelation about himself...

This Sunday’s Gospel tells us that Jesus let the apostles struggle for many hours in a violent storm before going to them.  Why did He wait so long? Gospel (Read Mt. 14:22-33) After the miraculous feeding of the five thousand (last Sunday’s Gospel), Jesus sent both His disciples and the vast crowd a...

Today, August 6th, Christians around the world celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration. In this pivotal moment, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. There, before their eyes, He is transfigured—his face shines like the sun, His clothes become dazzling white, and the prophets Mos...

“Before filling the glass with good liquid, the bad one must be poured out.” I don’t need to tell you the story of St. Augustine—no, not you, readers. You know already of the great saint, whose conversion story is perhaps the most famed ever written. His life gave birth to the concept of the Augusti...