A holy hour is the practice of spending one hour’s time in Sacrament, praying and meditating on the agony of Jesus Christ. More broadly, a holy hour can also refer to any 60 minutes set aside in prayer and reflection, whether in church or elsewhere. The holy hour devotion dates to the late 17th century,…
Hello Families, In our family life we can sometimes hear echoes of the disciples’ excuses: “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Sometimes this echo is heard from children squabbling about the last piece of cake. Sometimes it is heard in our concern about the limits of the family’s income or possessions.…
GROW AS A DISCIPLE In one of the best homilies, I ever heard on today’s Gospel, the homilist pointed out that the Lord had seemingly “over multiplied” the loaves and fish. The crowds had eaten to the point of satisfaction, and yet there were twelve baskets of leftovers remaining. “Why so many leftovers? Did the…
The daily examen is a spiritual practice derived from the writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. A Basque nobleman, Ignatius underwent a series of religious conversions as a young man following a wound sustained in the Battle of Pamplona in 1521. His Spiritual Exercises were first published in…
Hello Families, Like the person who found the buried treasure and the merchant who acquired the pearl of great price, we seek to find the signs of the kingdom of heaven in our lives. In fact, we even work to bring about God’s kingdom in our actions and in our words. We pray that our…
GROW AS A DISCIPLE Today we continue to hear parables about the kingdom of God and the reaction of those who find it. The merchant and the person in the field joyfully sell all they have to acquire their treasures. In a world in which we have so many responsibilities, following God may sometimes feel…
Question: I accept on faith that God is a Trinity of Persons, and I know it’s something we can’t fully understand. Should I just accept that, or should I try to learn more? Answer: There’s a legend from the life of St. Augustine. As the early Church grappled with the identity of Christ and his…