Excerpts from two ancient Holy Week homilies followed by a special Holy Week thanksgiving prayer appropriate for either personal or corporate use. Super devotions for the sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday....
This post on the sufferings and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is focuses on Palm Sunday but makes for a great read anytime during the Lenten Season or Holy Week. Frequent meditation on the Passion of Christ is important because the Passion is...
Hold fast to God, our one true good, counsels Ambrose. In the following words, he explains the essence of the great commandment of Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Loving God with your whole heart, soul, and strength means holding on to him, seeking him and pursuing him with...
\[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']D[/dropcaps]ear friends, If any of you have told many friends and family that you are going to the Holy Land, you probably have been told "you've got to be crazy!" For those following TV news over the years, this reaction is quite...
[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']S[/dropcaps]ome people give in when confronted with temptation in their lives. Some just do the best they can. In this week’s Gospel reading [the first Sunday in Lent] we have an inside look at how Jesus overcame temptation with God’s...
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) here makes clear that Satan, aka the devil, cannot be reduced to a mere symbol of evil. He is a personal being, a fallen angel, who is at the same time not an evil god, but a creature...
While preaching on the occasion of the Dedication of a Church, St. Caesarius of Arles points out that baptism makes of us temples of God, sanctuaries of the Holy Spirit....
This excerpt from a catechetical instruction by St. Cyril of Jerusalem dates from the mid 4th Century, just a generation after the Council of Nicaea. At that time, the bishop of Jerusalem himself instructed the catechumens before baptism (today's RCIA), and this is a record...
John Chrysostom here comments on the famous lines in the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus calls his disciples the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World (Matt. 5: 15-16). [dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']Y[/dropcaps]ou are the salt of the earth....
Christians don't leave home to "go to Church" - the family, says Vatican II, St. John Paul II, and Pope Francis, is the "domestic church," the smallest pastoral unit of the Church where much of the life of the church takes place....