A Word to Enkindle

A Word to Enkindle, October 03, 2021

. Paul’s description of prayer as striving on behalf of someone else has always intrigued me; the verb form he uses, agonizomenos, implies a fight, engagement in a contest where victory or defeat is at stake.

A Word to Enkindle, September 17, 2021

As the synod approaches, take stock of your many gifts and of the needs of the Church, and then ready yourself for the exciting and creative task of everyone working together for God’s purpose.

A Word to Enkindle, September 16, 2021

The Extraordinary Form of the Mass can offer a beautiful combination of silence and reverent song that conveys a strong sense of divine mystery, especially in such a frenetic and noisy culture as our own.

A Word to Enkindle, August 20, 2021

May we all live “among the mountains” with our hearts fixed on the summit — God himself, as he invites us to continual conversion, to continual ascent, casting down every false peak as an idol and staying hungry for the glorious view we hope to enjoy with him in heaven.

A Word to Enkindle, July 21, 2021

The extraordinary but relatively unknown philosopher and martyr also known by her religious name of Theresa Benedicta of the Cross.

A Word to Enkindle, June 19, 2021

On Father’s Day in this year dedicated to St. Joseph, let’s pray for the men in our lives, that every day they might grow more like St. Joseph.

A Word to Enkindle, May 08, 2021

I’ve come to realize that the phrase “social justice” provokes very different reactions in Catholics, often according to their knowledge of the Catholic tradition and to their political sympathies. My sense is that some Catholics are very frightened by it. So, what should we think when our schools and parishes use this phrase? What could it mean?

A Word to Enkindle, April 18, 2021

The first Christian Bible study was held Easter Sunday on the road to Emmaus. Cleopas and his anonymous traveling companion are wallowing in despair about the death of Jesus, to such an extent that they are fleeing Jerusalem moments after hearing reports that the tomb was empty. Jesus, unrecognized on the road, joins the conversation and steers it toward a specific goal: teaching his downtrodden disciples, then as now, how to read the Bible.

A Word to Enkindle, April 03, 2021

“Spiritual Direction” by Fr. John for The Texas Catholic. A healthy spiritual life is like a docile and trusting child happy to grow under a mother and father. In this image, we all need “spiritual direction” like we all need mothers and fathers, men and women ready to affirm, teach, console and challenge us. Like […]

A Word to Enkindle, March 21, 2021

I am not a psychologist in the modern technical sense of the term. I have no training in matters dealing with the brain or nervous system, and I possess only a rudimentary knowledge of human biochemistry. But I do love uncovering the etymologies of words, and therefore I can say that I aim to be a psychologist in the original sense of the Greek word psyche: the animating principle of the whole person, which we translate as “soul.” Saint Gregory the Great emphatically declares, in his influential “Pastoral Rule,” that the proper nurturing, challenging, and encouraging of souls is the great duty of priests, since “the care of souls is the art of arts.”