There is a popular image of Fr. Solanus standing near a grotto of Mary, with book in hand, praying. According to a caption I came across, it says Solanus is praying the Little Office. He took this devotion quite seriously, believing that to neglect it would be a sign of his ingratitude toward the Blessed
When we consider how important prayer is for the life of the Church, it is very surprising just how little the Church fathers and mothers wrote about prayer. They talk about it, of course, but they almost never engage in teaching their people how to pray. If you want to write a book on how
God gives us the gifts of faith, hope, and love in Baptism. To be rooted in faith and hope and to live out love, we need prayer. Prayer brings us consolation and, by allowing God into our lives, brings Him consolation. Moreover, prayer makes us new, as the prophet Haggai illustrates in the following parable:
The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a powerful one that renews the hesed covenantal love between God and man. This devotion consists of five basic elements, which renew humanity by restoring our relationship with the God who loves us. Our Lord gave these five aspects of the Sacred Heart devotion to St.
Remember the sabbath day—keep it holy. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God. You shall not do any work, either you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your work animal, or the resident alien within your
One of the chief trends in modern life is from the rural to the urban setting. We must note, of course, that the city itself is not a strictly modern development. Cities have always marked civilization, from Troy to Athens, from Rome to Paris, from London to New York. Cities afford opportunities for the development
Silence is a hallmark of prayer in many religious traditions. It carries with it a certain awe, as if maintaining extended periods of silence were supernatural in itself, but in reality, it is part of the human life’s natural commute from solitude to encounter. Silence creates a separation that allows one to move away from
Pope Benedict XVI saw the need for an education in silence in our time: “Ours is not an age which fosters recollection; at times one has the impression that people are afraid of detaching themselves, even for a moment, from the mass media. For this reason, it is necessary nowadays that the People of God
The role Job played in the salvation of his friends may be interpreted as prefiguring both the Church and Christ. The friends, according to St. Gregory the Great, are “heretics,” while Job is a type of the Church, “whose faith they used to impugn with their false assumptions.” The heretics, therefore, must obtain their salvation
Surely there are few more endearing characters in all biblical and literary history than Job. Mankind universally identifies with the conundrum of innocent suffering and the questions it brings. Though the person of Job in the Old Testament is a historical one, the book of Job itself, irrespective of a literal interpretation, is regarded as
