Much of scripture emphasizes the vast difference between God’s wisdom and human understanding, highlighting His sovereignty and the limits of human knowledge. This plays out in our world where we know God yet don’t understand. What we do know is through Christ we have true intimacy and that we are loved beyond the ends of the earth.
Continue reading “God Sees All That Is”
There is nothing like being at our home in the forest that reconnects me with God. Studies show that leaving the city and grounding ourselves in nature can do wonders for our mental health.
Continue reading “Lost And Found”
In today’s gospel we hear the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” If we only have the bandwidth to do one thing in a day, this needs to be our highest priority. We were made to love God.
Continue reading “Made to Love God”
Fifteen hundred years ago, Benedict of Nursia came out of his hermit’s cave and founded a monastery in Italy on the rocky crag of Monte Cassino. There he wrote the Rule that laid the cornerstone for monastic religious orders ever after. Benedict’s monastic spirit and discipline so revolutionized a newly Christianized Europe that there is little wonder that his namesake, Pope Benedict XVI, applauded Benedict’s title Patron of Europe, bestowed on the saint in 1964.
Continue reading “A Rule of Life”
Everyone seems to be searching for the key to lasting happiness in this life. We want to escape the intense amount of anxiety we feel on a daily basis and desperately want to be happy.
Often we will go to our “comforts” for happiness, whether it is scrolling on our phone or binging on the latest Netflix show.
Or we may seek out food or drinks that mask the feelings inside of us, giving us a momentary feeling of pleasure that fills in the hole of happiness in our heart for a little while.
However, ultimately these material things will not lead to lasting happiness, a reality that many of the saints understood. Abandonment to the will of God is the secret of happiness on earth. Knowing and acting in God’s grace allows us to flow in the face of struggle and strong in faith not overcome by anxiety.
It’s worth the struggle!
“Christian optimism is not a sugary optimism, nor is it a mere human confidence that everything will turn out all right. It is an optimism that sinks its roots into an awareness of our freedom, and the sure knowledge of the power of grace. It is an optimism that leads us to make demands on ourselves, to struggle to respond at every moment to God’s call.”— St. Josemaria Escriva
We are given the gift of joy despite our circumstances and encourage each other with kindness and compassion. We do this through proper discernment and orientation of our motives. In his book Finding God’s Will for You, St Francis De Sales asks us to look at the intentions around how we do what God directs us to do.
Continue reading “Intention of Heart”
Much of my young adult life I confess that I thought of God in a transactional way. If I did certain things or performed a certain way, I would be rewarded in faith. The Catholic faith to which I converted to was rich in prayers, traditions and practices that can feed into this way of thinking. I was like a good Pharisee.
Continue reading “Making the Better Choice”
We will never be free of trials and temptations as long as our earthly life lasts. Job said it well: “Is not the life of human beings on earth a drudgery?’ (Job 7:1). We should always be on our guard against temptations, always praying that our enemy, the devil, ‘who never sleeps but constantly looks for someone to devour.’ (1 Pet 5:8), will not catch us off guard. No one in this world is so perfect or holy as not to have temptations sometimes.
Continue reading “The Gift of Temptation”
Today is the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul the Apostles. It serves as a reminder to us of their pivotal roles in the early Church: Peter as the “rock” upon which the Church was built and Paul as the great missionary who spread the Gospel message. It draws us to consider how we are better together.
Continue reading “Better Together”
How can we be full of joy in times like these? It seems we are truly walking through the valley of tears as we watch the shadowlands of humanity play out on the world stage. We are called not to loose hope, to take heart and find joy. This is the spiritual maturity we are called to pursue with fear and trembling. We cancel our focus on the fleeting joy the world offers and gravitate to the joy found in the moments of God’s presence.
Continue reading “The Source of Joy”
Smitten With Goodness 