Dear Friends,   One indication of the state of our spiritual life is the spirit with which we live Holy Week. The week is at the core of our Catholic faith, and its events range from the exhilaration of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem to his agonizing death on Calvary to ...

Dear Friends,   With the ongoing situation in the Holy Land and violence spreading throughout the Middle East, times seem precarious. Or perhaps it feels so removed and distant from daily life. I have asked myself: How does the Lord invite me to respond, so as to neither live in ...

Dear Friends, One of my favorite hymns in the Lenten season speaks of ways in which we can show mercy. “In these days of Lenten journey we have seen and we have heard the call to sow justice in the lives of those we serve. We reach out to those ...

Hope in God, I will praise him even now, my Savior and my God (Psalm 42) Dear Friends,   Why so much rage? Why so much rage in our culture? Why so much rage in our cities and towns? Why—if we’re honest—so much rage in our own hearts? It seems ...

Dear Friends,   The Holy See’s recent announcement that paves the way for the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen will likely fuel interest in the many YouTube postings of his Life Is Worth Living TV series. These shows from the 1950s and 1960s, which drew vast numbers of Catholic and ...

Dear Friends,   The late Pope Francis commissioned Capuchin Friar Fr. Emiliano Antenucci to write a relatively unknown Marian icon, Our Lady of Silence, for the Vatican offices. (One “writes”—not draws or paints—an icon because of how it is crafted: essentially, by an author who intends to convey a theology ...

Dear Friends,   Last month, I visited Assisi, and after praying at the main sites, my group went to the Eremo delle Carceri, a sanctuary nestled in the dense forest of Mount Subasio about 4 kilometers from the town. The small buildings there enclose the caves where Francis and his ...

Dear Friends,   In the Book of Micah, the Lord is very clear: “I will destroy your idols…and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands” (Micah 5:13). God’s absolute intolerance of idols is a constant theme throughout Sacred Scripture: he will not brook anything that ...