Captivated by God's Word
There is a prayer from Safro (Maronite Morning Prayer) for Thursday morning that I've been mulling over in my mind and heart for the past couple of weeks. Let me quote the complete prayer as it appears...
View ArticleBoth And
So I've had a number of ideas floating around in my head lately, and I do have some upcoming posts that are still in the development stages, but as I was praying this morning something struck me. I...
View ArticlePrayer Rope Orders
If anyone is looking to order prayer ropes as Christmas gifts, I strongly encourage you to place the order before the end of this month (November). That way I have the time to complete all orders...
View ArticleCool Off, Heat Up!
Throughout my own spiritual journey I've noticed that there have been times where I have been on fire for the Lord. With prayer comes great consolations, insights, revelations, etc. Spiritual reading...
View ArticleGreed or Generosity?
Here in the U.S. we experience an odd phenomenon every year. The day after Thanksgiving retail stores offer some hefty discounts on items, and folks rush to those stores in the wee hours of the morning...
View ArticleWill It
As I was driving out to the administration office of the company I'm working with, I was reminded of a conversation between St. Thomas Aquinas and an anonymous person. It seems the person, curious...
View ArticleGreat Lent!!!
Please forgive my absence. I've been struggling through a spiritual dry-spell lately. I've had little to no inspiration; all spiritual reading and prayer have given little consolation; and I feel as...
View ArticleHope
Sometimes it seems that maintaining hope in the face of my own sinfulness is impossible. With each fall it is easy to become discouraged. And fall after fall the discouragement grows. "How can God...
View ArticleWelcome the Springtime!
As we in the Catholic Church - Eastern, Oriental, and Western - conclude the Lenten season and enter into Great and Holy Week, I'd like to reflect for a moment on a central theme of this time of year:...
View ArticleSpring Rain
This morning, as I was keeping my regular prayer rule, I sat in awe as a great thunderstorm raged outside. The lightning was bright and streaks of it flashed close to my apartment window. The thunder...
View ArticleThe New and the Old
There has always been an attitude that has plagued me at the completion of Great Lent and throughout the Paschal Season. Growing up in a Roman Catholic household my mother made sure that we didn't just...
View ArticleMere Laymen?
It is often discouraging - or perhaps overwhelming is a better way to put it - to be a layman talking about the deep spirituality of the Jesus Prayer and trying to share it with others. So often we...
View ArticleWhere's the Zeal???
I remember listening to religious talks on cassette and CD with my family as a young boy. These talks were given by men and women who had either converted to the Catholic Church from another...
View ArticleRestoration!
I must admit that the Feast of Pentecost has always been a difficult feast for me to understand. Oh sure, I know it's the feast where we celebrate the decent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, and...
View ArticleNew Life and Renewed Life
As we take our leave of the seasons of Easter and Pentecost, we once again resume the life of repentance, of ongoing conversion. Granted our repentance and our penance is not as intense as during Great...
View ArticleAlways New Beginnings
In his wonderful "Summa" of the spiritual life, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation, St. Theophan the Recluse describes for us the attitude that we ought to have in approaching...
View ArticleLittle Heroes
As I was sitting at my kitchen table this morning, tying prayer ropes and listening to an Orthodox pastor give his "testimony" on his journey from Pentecostal/Evangelical Protestantism to Orthodoxy, I...
View Article"Know Your Catechism!"
Some time ago I recall reading a book by Archbishop Joseph Raya on the Sacraments of Initiation. The late Archbihop Raya - Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop of Akka, Haifa, Nazareth, and Galilee - is...
View ArticleGet Messy
I am coming to realize more and more that there is no room for timidity in the spiritual life. One cannot expect to advance in the spiritual life if one is unwilling to boldly take the first step, even...
View ArticleGood News and Bad News
During my prayer time this morning a thought occurred to me. Among many self-proclaimed "traditional Catholics" I often hear bemoaned the fact that we rarely hear homilies on sin and hell from the...
View Article