Very early one November morning in 1535, as the light cast soft shadows on the austere Castilian landscape, twenty-year-old Teresa de Ahumada y Cepeda stole away from her home in Avila. Her destination—the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation in the same city. Her heart ached that morning at the thought of leaving her widowed father behind. “It seemed that every bone in my body was being sundered,” she later wrote. More »

In Thérèse’s day, many people had a mistaken idea of holiness and thought that sanctity was a matter of willful effort well beyond the ordinary person. The mistaken idea of holiness often suggested was that sanctity was a matter of willful effort well beyond the ordinary person. More »

The archangels we celebrate on September 29 act as God’s messengers to his people, and there are many biblical examples of their work in salvation history. But did you realize that the most important role of the angels of God is to praise him before his throne? More »

Who is the number one exemplar, or model, that the Spirit uses to inspire us? It is Jesus, of course. But Jesus cannot model response to Jesus! More »

In 2007, a new book about Mother Teresa was published, grabbing headlines and causing people around the world to look at her in a completely new light. More »

Tourists on a glorious spring day in 2003, my husband and I took a short metro ride to the outskirts of Rome to Ostia Antica, the ruins of a once great port city. For several hours we roamed this large, preserved site of antiquity. More »

In the year 1112, a bright young nobleman embarked on an adventure that pioneered new paths—politically, socially, and spiritually—throughout Western Europe. More »

“I await your plan. I want to live only for you.” Easy for a saint to say? More »