Dear Friends, Every Christian to some extent understands the concept of sacrifice. The dictionary describes sacrifice as the surrendering of something for someone else. We choose which sacrifices we are going to make to help ourselves grow in holiness. We choose to not eat certain foods or drink certain beverages ...

The path of nothing in order to win everything. Dear Friends, Recently I have been reading Saint John of the Cross’ Ascent of Mount Carmel. His classic spiritual works never fail to offer perennial nuggets of wisdom that speak to the universal human condition. The heart is insatiable. How do we ...

Dear Friends, My mother will be 84 this June and is living through her final stages of Alzheimers’ disease.  I have watched the very things that brought her joy and peace slowly slip away. She was an avid reader of spiritual books, devoted to daily prayer, loved to swap recipes ...

Dear Friends, Being Set Free: In Luke 1:67-69, Zechariah starts his canticle by blessing the Lord “who has come to his people to set them free,” free from their enemies so that they are free to worship him without fear. Zechariah foresees the fulfillment of God’s covenant in Mary’s womb ...

Dear Friends, In this past Sundays’ Gospel, Jesus proclaims, “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me,” assuring us that his sheep can recognize his voice and follow him. Yet, if there was a “most frequently asked question for spiritual directors,” it would probably be, ...

Dear Friends, Prayer, like relationships, has its ups and downs, its spells of fervor and days of desert, moments of ease and times when it feels impossible to hear or get through to God. No better time than the present to renew our desire and dedication to prayer through the ...

Dear Friends, I write to you from Rome, after a week of planning meetings for our Society of Apostolic life. While speaking about our apostolic projection, one of the consecrated women shared an insight that has stayed with me. Her initial understanding of the Kingdom was an army taking to ...

Dear Friends, “What must I do?”(Lk. 10:25). This question, perhaps phrased a bit differently in colloquial terms, pops into our heads quite often. Especially in our efficiency-driven culture, we want to know what to do and the best way to do it. We are evaluated on our performance, and we ...