The amiable Redeemer approaches the end of life. My soul, behold those eyes grow dim; that beautiful countenance becomes pale; that heart palpitates feebly; that sacred body is abandoned to death. More »

What is a prophet? A strident voice denouncing injustice? A wild-eyed visionary calling sinners to repentance? These images hardly fit Katharine Drexel, a refined, wealthy woman who disliked being in the public eye and felt strongly attracted to hidden prayer. And yet, like the biblical prophets of old, this self-effacing heiress became a voice in the wilderness and a countercultural witness to the gospel call to justice. More »

The girl was walking in the fields some ways off from her home, when two strangers appeared and asked her to pick them some fruit. Brought up to show courtesy to adults, the nine-year-old hurried to obey. Not until she was in the forest did she realize it was a trick. More »

One day around 1780, an Episcopalian stepmother opened her King James Bible and introduced her stepdaughter to Psalm 23: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. . . ." Though the two were not close and the woman was preoccupied with many cares, the moment was extraordinarily significant. More »

When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. (Matthew 10:19-20) More »

It always amazes me how God works extra hard to bring good out of evil and injustice. It’s even more amazing how some people who are suffering some form of injustice allow God to take hold of the unjust situation and baptize it, as it were, so that it can produce godly fruit. Nowhere is this dynamic at work more dramatically than with the witness of St. John of the Cross. More »

On this feast of the Immaculate Conception, we read the story of our first parents’ fall and God’s promise of salvation through an offspring of Eve (Genesis 3). More »

The crowd that gathered in the church in Milan that day late in a.d. 374 was confused, fearful, and angry. The Christian community in the city had been bitterly divided for decades between the followers of Arius, who taught that Christ was not divine but merely a creature, and those who defended the teaching of Rome that Jesus was both man and God, equal to the Father in all respects. More »