How Is God Calling You?
Another Way to Pray for Vocations
We’re often urged to “pray for vocations.” Almost always, this is meant as an encouragement to ask God for more priests and religious for service to the church. Certainly, this intention is crucial and timely. Continue »
Streams in the Desert
Embrace the paradoxes of Lent.
Isn’t it amazing the way Scripture turns so many things upside down? The meek inherit the earth, while the proud are humbled and brought low. It’s only in dying that we find life. Those who are last become the first. Over and over again in Scripture, things are not what they seem, and the more time we spend reading the Bible, the more paradoxes we seem to find. Continue »
Becoming a Priest Every Day
Two Aspects That Have Helped Me Become The Priest I Am
I remember seeing a billboard once that showed a graphic portrayal of Jesus suffering on the cross. Underneath was the caption “Be a priest like me.” It was a startling message for vocations. Continue »
Wisdom for Every “Martha”
Brother Lawrence found the secret of abiding joy.
As the Carmelite monks chanted psalms in their church across the courtyard, the head cook labored in the monastery kitchen. There, against the background hiss of boiling water and the steady beat of his knife against the chopping block, stood a middle-aged man—a lay brother whose duties prevented him from joining the others in prayer. Continue »
Mary’s Touch
It’s a sign of the Spirit at work.
As I was growing up, my family could have said, with the disciples of John the Baptist whom Paul discovered at Ephesus, “We haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit” (Acts 19:2). Continue »
Destined for Eternity
To be pro-life means to be pro-every-life.
It has been seventeen years since Pope John Paul II issued his encyclical letter The Gospel of Life. Continue »