Latest Articles
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To Pray Better
Every now and again, someone asks me how “to pray better.” I know the feeling, because dark spirits are always lurking to suggest that I’m not much of a pray-er myself. Well, we all need to remember a little metaphor that Master Ignatius created for Jeronimo Nadal. This Majorcan inherited a good fortune in his…
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LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULER
Tomorrow, March 4, is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Let the good times roll! That’s Mardi Gras in New Oleans, an adult way of playing, expensive and very ritualized, that begins on Twelfth Night with a parade and ball and continues until this morning, the “Fat Tuesday” before Ash Wednesday. It’s been going on for…
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Synodality’s Jesuit Roots
Synodality is the name this pope has given the process he hopes (and has made some rules about it) will shape the way pastors, bishops, and popes do their business. And it’s bound to get to the “ordinary Catholic.” If you wonder where he got this idea, it might be useful to recall that he…
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Inspiration from St. Ignatius
An Inspiration from St. Ignatius I was praying to St. Ignatius, so maybe he gave me this inspiration: It’s better to do it when you think of it than to think about it later and know you haven’t got it done.
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“Indifferent to All Things”?
When St. Ignatius tells us (in the Principle and Foundation) to live “indifferent to all created things” it might sound like an insult to our passionately loving Creator, who made the sun and the moon and all the peoples, for his great love endures forever (Ps.136:5). We are correct to rejoice in the earth and…
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Suffer as Jesus Did?
The first thing to keep very clear is that Jesus did not say that we would suffer if we follow Him. No one saw the suffering abroad in this world as He did. And suffering is abroad in the world not because God created it; God is love and love does not do that. This…
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Persons in God’s Image
Here is one way to approach our personal relationships with the Lord Jesus. See if it makes sense to you. We are made in the image and likeness of God. When we think about that, we want to remember what has been revealed to us about God: God has existed forever as Three Persons, whom…
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Jesus Is Transformed
Jesus had a premonition or a inspiration that he was to take His closest friends and go up to a high place. There, He was transfigured—His clothes becoming like light and His face shining and splendid. Then Moses and Elijah were with Him, just as physical as He was—suggesting something about the afterlife. But God’s…
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Jesus Preaches the Kingdom
What might it have been like? Maybe like a dean announcing that every graduate who took the LSAT to get into a law school had excelled. Or like a mother announcing to her big brood that she’s PG again and they will have a little sister/brother soon. Well, Jesus did something much, much bigger. To…
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The Feast at Cana
Three things huddle below the surface of this event. First of all is what made the Lady Mary pointedly call her Son’s attention to the failure of wine. She knew that He had not yet used His powers, so insisting now means that she felt that He was in some manner connected with the failure….