Papal Angelus from Lourdes
I thank the Holy Father for this marvelous Angelus message. The heart of it — or the word that resonated most strongly within me —...
Mariological Teachings of Pope Benedict XVI
The Mariological teachings of the Holy Father are, more often than not, enshrined in carefully crafted homilies. He delights us both by the delicacy of...
Quaerere Deum
Pope Benedict XVI Collège des Bernardins, Paris 12 September 2008 The Holy Father’s discourse today at the Collège des Bernardins (a familiar way of referring...
If the Hurricanes of Temptation Rise Against Thee
The picture is a detail of Corrado Giaquinto’s Nascita della Vergine (1732). His Maria Bambina is one of the loveliest I have ever seen. Saint...
The Earlier Mysteries of the Blessed Virgin Mary
For some years now, especially around the Marian feasts of September 8th, September 12th, November 21st, and December 8th, I have prayed my rosary while...
Today: Pray and Fast for the Christians of Orissa
The violent persecution of Christians in Orissa, India, remains largely ignored in the American media. AsiaNews offers ongoing coverage of the tragedy. For the liturgical...
I went astray and still I remembered Thee
For my first entry from the little “provisional” Cenacle of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus in Tulsa, Oklahoma: a piece from the archives for the...
In manibus tuis tempora mea
In te speravi, Domine: dixi: Tu es Deus meus, in manibus tuis tempora mea. The Offertory Antiphon for the Mass of the Nineteenth Sunday Per...
Memorial of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr
Collect God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who led your martyr Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross to the knowledge of your crucified...
Give Us Priests Who Are On Fire
Our friends at WorldPriest offer the following reflection on this prayer dear to Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face: Saint...
Remembering Montmartre
Twenty-nine years ago today, a few young men prayed this Act of Consecration together in the crypt of the Basilica of Montmartre in Paris. I...
Il est là!
L’abbaye aux puces Twenty-nine summers ago, my dear friend Père Jacob, O.P. (not yet a Friar Preacher) and I were on a kind of back-packing...
An American “Newman”
I am reading for the second or third time a splendid old biography of American Passionist Father Fidelis of the Cross (1840-1921), one of the...
Rise and Live
So wearied with long journeying, and never didst thou cry, Enough; still obstinate, confess thy need thou wouldst not. Alas, what anxious fears were these,...
Therefore They Shall Be Holy
The Novena Revisited I thought it might be helpful to “revisit” the Novena Prayer that some of us have been saying for the past nine...
The Indignities Committed Against Thee
This morning I offered the Votive Mass for the Remission of Sins in reparation for the grievous outrages committed against the Most Blessed Sacrament. It...
Ego autem sum puer parvus
Ask What Thou Wilt “The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, ‘Ask what thou wilt that I should give...
Humanae Vitae, 40 Years Ago Today
I remember well the promulgation of Humanae Vitae on July 25, 1968. Subsequent history has demonstrated that Pope Paul VI spoke “with a special light...
Reparation
Answer Me Tell me, my people, what I have done, that thou shouldst be a-weary of me? Answer me. Was it ill done, to rescue...
Prayer Ever on Your Lips
I first read the life of the heroic Father Willie Doyle, S.J. by Alfred O’Rahilly forty years ago. It was the summer of 1968, and...