Look around you. Do you see Spirit-filled Christians? Do you see Catholics on fire for the Gospel? Men and women totally surrendered to God and living lives marked by the beatitudes: Blessed the poor in spirit, the meek, the pure of heart?  The event of Pentecost as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles gives us a clear indication of why we don’t see the Spirit transforming the earth.  The descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles was part of a long process of transformation for...

As I was living the sacred days of the Paschal Triduum this year, I have been thinking of how overwhelmed people are feeling these days. It seems as if we have been brought to the edge: as a country, as a Church, and even the burning of Notre-Dame de Paris and the bombings in Sri Lanka have been as a kick in the gut.Though we prefer to meditate on Jesus as the kind and gentle Shepherd, the merciful Savior, the consoling Master, Jesus actually brought his disciples into a state of “ove...

How is your Lent going? We’re about halfway through it already. If you have a Lenten plan and have stuck with it so far, that’s great. If not, there’s still time to correct our course and prepare for Easter. In doing this, we have a wonderful example in Mary, our Blessed Mother. We just celebrated the feast of the Annunciation. That feast is not meant to just be another day, but it shows us how we can live in response to God’s loving invitations to us. Mary is the Ne...

What goes through your mind when you wake up? Your to-do list? Your calendar? An upcoming meeting? A conversation you had last night? The real problems in our world, in our Church, in your family, in your heart?As hard as I try, these things are often on my mind when I wake up in the morning. There are always things to do, meetings to attend, emails to answer, places to go…and people to worry about.I have found myself thinking lately about Mother Thecla, the first Daughter of St. Paul, an...

Have you noticed as the years pass that you identify with different persons in the Gospel than you may have connected with in earlier years? This year, as we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, along with World Day of Consecrated Life (February 2), I find myself feeling surprisingly close to Anna, the woman who, having remained a widow since her youth, "never left the Temple, but worshipped night and day with fasting and prayer" (2:37). She was a woman consecrated to G...

Do you ever wonder if you are good enough? Good enough to get a promotion? Good enough for your children? Good enough for God?Fear over not being enough is something most of us have felt at least once. We need to prove ourselves to others in every aspect of our life. To sell ourselves. To brand ourselves. To convince others we are good enough for this award, this promotion, this opportunity.The advertising industry makes us worry our bodies aren’t beautiful enough, healthy enough, powerful...

“Mary treasured all these things and pondered on them in her heart” (Lk 2:19).For several years now I have been curating a blog called “The Angelus Project." Every week it presents a different image of the Annunciation as a way of encouraging people to pray the Angelus (though now that we are in the Easter season, that prayer yields pride of place to the Regina Coeli). The process of selecting and posting these weekly images from so many different eras and cultures has tau...