A Word to Enkindle

A Word to Enkindle, September 29, 2022

“Discerning the will of God” by Fr. John for The Texas Catholic. One of the most laudable questions I receive is about how to discern God’s will. A decision is easy to make when the choice is between something right and something wrong. But a decision can be difficult when the choice is between two […]

A Word to Enkindle, September 20, 2022

“Technology’s trap and our humanity”  by Fr. Thomas for Texas Catholic. I reached a new low recently when I felt an overwhelming and irresistible itch to catch up on emails mere minutes after my first check of the day, which happened mere minutes after I finished celebrating Mass. I had long lamented the sight of […]

A Word to Enkindle, September 04, 2022

“Spiritual direction from God” by Fr. John for The Texas Catholic. Someone left copies of “Abandonment to Divine Providence” by Jean-Pierre de Caussade in the monastery one day. The edition is a paperback from Dynamic Catholic, a company that tries to make great Catholic literature widely available. A few ideas in this book stick out […]

A Word to Enkindle, August 22, 2022

“The graced adventure of simplicity”  by Fr. Thomas for Texas Catholic. The future is not simply an adventure; it’s the adventure, according to the Latin roots ad, “to, toward” and ventura, “what will come.” While many students eagerly anticipate the start of a new school year and engaged couples impatiently count down the days to […]

A Word to Enkindle, July 14, 2022

“Read this book on racial reconciliation” by Fr. John for The Texas Catholic. For a while, I have been studying the topic of race in American and Catholic history. It is a difficult topic for obvious reasons, but it is also a rewarding one. In fact, I have been greatly edified learning about figures like […]

A Word to Enkindle, June 18, 2022

This is not a typical celebratory Father’s Day meditation; no Hallmark card will feature such apparently dour reminders to Dads of their limitations, weaknesses, and mortality. But the privileges and challenges of imitating both St. Joseph and the eternal Father of Jesus Christ make fatherhood an awe-inspiring vocation.

A Word to Enkindle, May 23, 2022

“Listening at the Dallas Synod” by Fr. John for The Texas Catholic. Plans are well underway for the 2024 Synod — that big meeting to advise the bishop about the spiritual, material and administrative situation of the Dallas Diocese. Essential to its success are the “listening sessions” now taking place: two years of honest and […]

A Word to Enkindle, May 05, 2022

“Mary, mother of every beloved disciple”  by Fr. Thomas for Texas Catholic. Mary is never named in the Gospel of John. In the only scenes featuring her, the beloved disciple refers to her simply as “the mother of Jesus.” Those two episodes act as bookends to John’s presentation of Jesus’ ministry, and highlight the role […]

A Word to Enkindle, April 25, 2022

“Faith in Medicine” by Fr. John for The Texas Catholic. Our world needs Christian faith. A book that proved this to me regarding the medical field is Losing Our Dignity: How Secularized Medicine is Undermining Fundamental Human Equality by Charles C. Camosy. After a brief account of the Church’s major role in shaping medicine and […]

A Word to Enkindle, April 07, 2022

The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980, declared in a book of prose that “the Scriptures constitute the common good of believers, agnostics, and atheists.” For Milosz, whose life was scarred by the Nazi and Communist takeovers of his native land, the moral authority and literary beauty of the Bible was a refuge against the lethal and banal propaganda spewed forth from those godless governments and armies, even though he could not bring himself to believe in God.