Columns
Our Task as Christians Is to Be True to the Gospel
The Book of Malachi supplies this weekend’s Liturgy of the Word with its first reading. Malachi was not the name of the author of this book. Rather, it refers to […]
The Human Condition Archive
Perspective
A Map of Holy Week
The entire calendar of the Church’s year — the structure of feasts and seasons that make up the year, from Advent to Christ the King, the way those who are […]
Perspective
You Never Really Pray Alone
There is no such thing as “private” prayer. There is – and certainly should be – deeply personal prayer, but really no such thing as “private” prayer. All Christian prayer, […]
Perspective
The deeper implications of Lenten conversion
Christian baptism involves a whole new way of looking at things, a whole new way of feeling about things, a whole new way of doing things. And this precisely means […]
Perspective
The public prayers of the Church
Not long ago, you probably noticed on a change made to the public prayer of the Church —at least in English — beginning this past Lent: Prayers addressed to the […]
The Human Condition
Needing and wanting
There are some things we want more than we need. And then there are things we need more than we want. Writing more than 1,600 years ago, St. Augustine observed […]
Perspective
How to be a witness to the truth
In the Scriptures, the Devil is called “Diabolos,” which by the time of the New Testament comes to mean “Slanderer,” but derives from the Greek verb “to divide.” The Devil […]
Perspective
Discernment and ‘the real’
I was speaking recently with a colleague and friend of mine at the seminary regarding discernment, and he shrewdly pointed out that no one discerns — or even should consider […]
The Human Condition
Ten principles of the spiritual life
1. “Spirituality” or being “spiritual” means nothing more, but also nothing less, than being animated and guided by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus which is received at baptism. This […]
The Human Condition
The full implications of our adoption by grace
It is an article of Catholic faith that, through the regenerating grace of baptism, we are made sons and daughters of God. What Jesus, is by nature, proclaimed by the […]
The Human Condition
The morning offering — reconsidered
Many of us have had the habit — perhaps instilled in us by our parents or teachers — of offering the day to God. I recall, as a grade school […]
The Human Condition
‘Where do you stay?’
In the Gospel we heard a couple weeks ago at Sunday Mass (John 1.35-42), John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to two of his followers — “Behold, the Lamb of […]