Note: Continuing in this week’s ecumenical spirit, fostered by Gareth Thomas’s reflection yesterday on the Taizé community in France, today we have a piece by our friend Julian Waldner. Julian is a Hutterite Christian (a tradition that traces its roots...
I first heard Christophe Pierre speak in person at an event in New York City in February of 2019. His infectious smile and hearty laughter revealed, it seemed to me, a person filled with genuine joy. (His delightful French accent...
Faith is the miraculous gift of God. In faith, we are reborn. Through faith, we are sustained by God’s grace. But how do we nurture faith? In a recent Wednesday catechesis, Pope Francis said, “We grow in faith inasmuch as...
The Catechism says that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is “the chief sign and symbol” of Christ’s love for “the eternal Father and all human beings without exception” (CCC 478). Along these same lines, Pope Francis makes a radical claim...
The Second Vatican Council—specifically in its Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Apostolicam Actuositatem and in the Apostolic Constitution Lumen Gentium—affirmed that the laity are co-responsible for the mission of the Church. One narrative of the post-conciliar years has...
It is when we are most beset that God makes Himself closest to us for the simple reason that we are then most like Him. The Cross shows Him at His most beset, and also yet at His most triumphing....
During his Wednesday Audience this week, as a part of his ongoing catechesis on prayer, Pope Francis confronted one of the most difficult questions that face Christians: “if God is Father, why does He not listen to us? He who...
One of the most formative events of my life happened a year before I was born. When she was about six weeks old, my sister Katie—my parents’ firstborn, the answer to prayer after years of infertility—was found to have a...
Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront approaches the zenith of American cinema. Winner of all the principal Academy Awards in its day, it remains worth watching whether one wants to witness Hollywood great Marlon Brando at his peak or wants simply...
In worldly terms, ascension connotes a promotion or a rise in status. Society encourages us to ascend corporate and social ladders in order to enrich our lives with more opportunity, more money, and more prestige. In Christian terms, however, Jesus...
Can we all admit that we are often far less smart than we think we are? It’s not as much a matter pride or arrogance—although perhaps that’s part of it—but we often lack perspective and wisdom. Surely, we’ve had the...
I was born and baptized in 1962, and after I reached the age of reason, the only Mass I had ever experienced was the post-Vatican II Novus Ordo. This was the case while I misgrew in the faith and lapsed...
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