Not only is the Christian life redeemed in all its moments by a God who entered them to make them holy – but it is also meant to mysteriously extend Christ’s own life, throughout time, in our own. Claire Dwyer reflects on the hidden years.
On this feast of the child saints of Fatima, we do well to mark the words of Pope Saint John Paul II: “…the Church wishes to put on the candelabrum these two candles which God lit to illumine humanity in its dark and anxious hours.” Claire Dwyer remembers their brief lives and eternal message of prayer and hope.
Some of the greatest saints of the Church – and through Scripture, even God Himself – have used the example of gazing into the eyes of another to try to capture the beautiful and astonishingly real experience of God’s great love in the soul: contemplative prayer. Claire Dwyer reflects.
As we prepare to close this month, dedicated to prayers for and protection of the unborn, Claire Dwyer illuminates the short life of a young mother who seemed sent to us “for such a time as this.”
Claire Dwyer pulls several lessons from the life of Chiara Corbella Petrillo.
What is our response to the Word of God? Are we attentive to it? Do we allow ourselves to be moved to praise, repentance, and gratitude? Do we put it on the proper platform in our lives, giving it a place of primacy in our prayer? Claire Dwyer reflects on today’s readings.
“Thy Will be done”: Four simple words that sanctify each moment. Claire Dwyer reflects on the wisdom of Fulton Sheen and Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade.
The celebration of the Eucharist, the center of the Church’s life and the highpoint of its worship, should be given a dignity and a grandeur worthy of the reality it makes present.
We get 365 chances this year. 365 fresh starts. Every morning has been promised its share of mercies – not brushed off, polished up, half-used graces, but the brand-spankin’ new kind.
-Claire Dwyer
On the fourth day of Christmas, the Church gives to us a somber memorial which concretizes what could very possibly become, thanks to elves and snowmen, an overly sentimental feast of Christ’s birth. Claire Dwyer reflects on the Feast of the Holy Innocents.
“The silence of prayer is a surrendering of our own words and the noise surrounding us so that something far fuller can rush in – so that we can be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19). So that the creative, powerful and eternally self-donating Word, the one Word that matters, the eloquent Word that contains perfectly within it all our poor scattered syllables of truth, can be spoken. And in speaking, transform us within that silence to be a little bit more like Him. In speaking, reduce our interior and exterior storms to obedient breezes.”
Claire Dwyer reflects on the necessity of silence in the spiritual life.
