The key penitential practices of Lent-prayer, fasting, and almsgiving or mercy are here explained by one of the greatest preachers of the early Church. Saint Peter Chrysologus shows how Lenten prayer, mercy and fasting are one, and they give life to each other....
15 July, 2025 No comment
St. Bonaventure, known as the Seraphic Doctor, teaches us about mystical or contemplative prayer in the Holy Spirit who enkindles within us a raging fire and carries the soul to God with intense fervor and glowing love....
15 July, 2025 No comment
Here Bonaventure emphasizes faith as the key to Bible interpretation. The goal of Bible study is not academic knowledge, but wisdom -- the experience of God leading to eternal happiness and fulfillment of all our desires....
14 July, 2025 1 Comment
Print or download the following prayer of St. Bonaventure. It is especially fitting to pray this prayer after sacramental or spiritual communion, but it is a beautiful prayer to pray anytime. ierce, O most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the most joyous and......
12 July, 2025 2 Comments
St. Patrick's Day has been celebrated on March 17 for fifteen hundred years since it is the day that Patrick, the missionary bishop who evangelized Ireland, passed from this world to eternity. This excerpt from his autobiographical work called the Confession makes clear that eternity was what he lived for and what he sought to bring to pagan Ireland -- the Kingdom of God as ushered in by Jesus Christ...
11 July, 2025 No comment
St. Henry II was born in Bavaria in 973. He succeeded his father in ruling Bavaria as duke and was later elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1014. He proved extraordinary in his work for Church reform and expanded missionary activity. He died in 1024 and was canonized in 1146 by Pope Eugene III....
06 July, 2025 No comment
The famous parable of the Good Samaritan shows that mercy and compassion are not always convenient, and that love of neighbor can't be limited to those like us...
06 July, 2025 1 Comment
Here Anthony of Padua, one of the greatest preachers of the Middle Ages. interprets the tongues of Pentecost as different "love languages" whereby we witness to Christ by words and, even more importantly, actions. For his feast on June 13th....
08 June, 2025 No comment
Trinity Sunday celebrates the Church's faith in the triune God, one God in three persons. This doctrine has baffled people for 2,000 years. Given that it is so hard to accept, why bother with it? What difference does the trinitarian dogma really make to how we live our Christian lives?...
08 June, 2025 7 Comments
Bonaventure reflects on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the meaning of the blood and water flowing from the side of Christ crucified (John 19:34), the living water of sacramental grace coming from the loving heart of the Savior. He reflects especially on several lines of Psalm 36, used in the office of the feast : "Your love, Lord, reaches to heaven, your truth to the skies . . . In you is the source of life and in your light we see light."...
02 June, 2025 No comment