In general, the modern era neglects the practice of honoring excellent people. We idolize the famous and popular and leave the admirable, the truly excellent, to the teachers and textbooks. But we ought to honor the excellent. Why? Because it is part of the virtue of justice; honor is due to the honorable. Furthermore, holy people, i.e. saints, ought to be honored especially because holiness is the highest form of excellence—it is closeness to God. (And keep in mind “honor” does not mean “worship,” which is reserved for God alone.) St. Bonaventure’s biography of St. Francis records several in ..read more

From the time that Israel began its sojourn in Egypt until its liberation under Moses, although God’s Chosen People were not in the land that was their inheritance through Abraham, they seem to have experienced something of the blessing meant for man in the beginning, when God called Adam to be fruitful and multiply. Thanks to Joseph’s divine gifts and prudential judgment, Israel enjoyed special favor in Egypt, and they “multiplied and became so very numerous that the land was filled with them” (Ex 1:7). Indeed, during the time of Joseph’s ministry, it was the Egyptians who sold their land an ..read more

For 7 years, I have lived with a chronic medical condition called bile reflux disease. My gall bladder stopped working, and I had it removed in 2017. Unlike many people who have their gall bladder removed, my issues worsened rather than getting better. The medications I take aren’t working very well, and I haven’t always been strict enough with my diet, although diet doesn’t seem to fix it either. This has caused chronic, debilitatingly, painful gastritis, esophagitis, and a severe motility disorder. The bile is destroying the tissue of my esophagus, and I now have a pre-cancerous condition k ..read more

Love, suffering, and death have a uniquely interrelated relationship. To understand love, one must know sacrifice and therefore be acquainted with suffering. Jesus modeled this relationship by sacrificing Himself on the Cross for us. We all experience this in our human relationships as well. For example, spouses sacrifice for the good of one another, parents willingly lose sleep to care for their children, and our best friends will drop whatever they are doing to pick us up from the airport. This is meaningful love: the love of sacrifice.    To search for love is to search for God a ..read more

Out of necessity, humans have latched onto dating systems and chronologies as the means by which we keep track of ourselves in time. We keep track of where we are through our age, by the face of a clock, by naming generations, and by counting centuries and millennia. How often have you thought about this system by which we tell time? The one universal dating system upon which governments, business, travel, and education are based reigns supreme today, measuring years according to Common Era (CE) and Before Common Era (BCE) to provide a common reference for time. But did you know that there ha ..read more

I first learned of Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, from his former student, Father Joseph Fessio, SJ, during lectures he gave at two Catholic conferences at the University of Notre Dame. I remember Father Fessio describing Cardinal Ratzinger as a brilliant yet humble man who was always kind, a great help to Pope Saint John Paul II, and resolutely dedicated to teaching the truth of the Catholic Faith. He explained and defended the Church’s teachings amidst confusion by leading the committee that wrote the Catechism of the Catholic Church and through his work as Prefect of the Congr ..read more

A Follow-Up to Divine Mercy Sunday 2024 “You are I know the most incapable person, weak and sinful, but just because you are that, I want to use you, for my glory.” It may surprise us to know that Jesus spoke these words to St. Teresa of Calcutta before she founded her religious congregation, the Missionaries of Charity sisters. Jesus first invited her to begin her mission by accepting her need for His mercy in her life. God planned to fill her with His merciful love, strength, and compassion for all the needy souls in the world if only she would accept her weakness and sinfulness and place a ..read more

God puts us where we need to be. A radical statement for an article on the Titanic, I know. But on April 10, 1912, God placed Catholic men and women on board the Titanic to offer prayer and hope when it was needed most.     Three priests are known to have sailed on the Titanic: Father Juozas Montvila of Lithuania, Father Josef Peruschitz of Bavaria, and Father Thomas Byles of England, who had converted to Catholicism while studying theology at Oxford. When Father Byles boarded the Titanic, he did not know that his greatest service as a priest was about to begin. He pl ..read more

Have you ever pondered Jesus’ Eucharistic Virtues? St. Peter Julian Eymard, “the Apostle of the Eucharist,” did. He wrote the following:  Few persons think of the virtues, the life, the state of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. We treat Him like a statue; we think He is there merely to forgive our sins and to listen to our prayers. That is a wrong viewpoint. Our Lord lives and acts in the Eucharist. Look at Him, study, and imitate Him. Those who do not find Him in the Eucharist must go back nineteen centuries, read the Gospel and complete it in its intimate details. They miss the swe ..read more

In today’s Gospel, Jesus appears to the apostles and says, “Peace be with you.”  Why does this produce the exact opposite of peace? Gospel (Read Lk 24:35-48) We would do well today to keep the context of our Gospel reading in mind if we want to understand its full force.  In the preceding verses, Jesus meets two disciples on Resurrection Day walking away from Jerusalem toward a town called Emmaus.  They were bitterly disappointed in Jesus’ death.  Seeing Him would certainly have cured that; however, they were “kept” from recognizing Him.  That made it possib ..read more