Edith Stein — philosopher, convert, martyr, saint
The extraordinary but relatively unknown philosopher and martyr also known by her religious name of Theresa Benedicta of the Cross.
St. Joseph and Father’s Day
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: Social justice
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: The path of life in Psalm 16
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: Spiritual Direction
“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...
A Word to Enkindle: Psychology and Care of the Soul
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.”