From Season to Season

My paternal grandparents grew up in southeast Missouri in the decades before Great Depression (my grandfather in St. Francois County and my grandmother in Iron County). Although I don't know anything about my grandfather's early education, my grandmother was always proud that she and her siblings had been educated by the Ursuline Sisters " of the Roman Union " at the Ursuline Academy in their hometown of Arcadia. When I was a child, I had a chance to visit the old academy with my grandparents and Great-aunt Helen. I remember meeting a few of the sisters who were still in residence, working in the preschool - all that remained of the once thriving boarding and day school.  Along with the old spring house and the Lourdes grotto, I also got to see the remarkably grand St. Joseph's Chapel in which my grandparents had been married in 1946. It would be nearly two decades before my experience of the Ursulines grew beyond those childhood...

Then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But the Apostles went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.—Mark 16:19-20 Since his election in March 2013, Pope Francis has, of course, continued the millennia-old tradition of popes canonizing saints. However, he has broken with tradition by waiving the requisite second miracle for some of these holy women and men. As he observed in his recent flight from Sri Lanka to the Philippines (on January 15), he specifically chose to move forward with the canonization of some of these saints because of their work as evangelizers. These specially chosen saints include the Counter-Reformation era Jesuit Peter Faber , the Brazilian missionary José de Anchieta , Ursuline Sister Marie of theIncarnation and the bishop François de Montmorency-Laval , who could be honored as the founders of the Catholic Churc...

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”—Matthew 19:14 Born at Troyes, France, in 1620, Marguerite was twenty years old when she felt the call to consecrate herself to the service of God. Having joined a group of pious women dedicated to good works, she immigrated to the settlement at Montreal, Canada, in 1652, to tutor the children of the French garrison. In 1655, Marguerite rallied the people of Montreal to help her construct a chapel that would serve as a place of prayer and pilgrimage outside of the settlement; the stone chapel of Notre-Dame-de Bon-Secours was finally completed twenty years later. To help the children of the colony, Marguerite opened a school in a converted stable in 1658. Here she began teaching the basics of the faith, as well as the rudimentaries of reading and math; older girls were trained in household skills that would enable them to be successful wives and mothers. He...

I'm happy to share that my most recent book, "Moving Beyond Doubt," has been released by Abbey Press Publications . This book, which is part of Abbey Press's new series called " Focus on Faith ," explores how faith can enable us to move beyond our feelings of doubt about God, others, and ourselves to a place of peace and joy. It was a joy to work on this book, which is divided into brief affirmations, quotations, and questions/points for reflection. To learn more about "Moving Beyond Doubt," click here .

You who fear the Lord trust him, And your reward will not be lost. You who fear the Lord, hope for good things, For lasting joy and mercy. You who fear the Lord, love him, And your hearts will be enlightened. — Sirach 2:8-10 In these final days of the Christmas Season, there are a handful of “American” Saints that we are celebrating: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (on January 4), St. John Neumann (on January 5), and St. André Bessette (on January 6 in the United States and January 7 in Canada). “It is with the smallest brushes that the Artist paints the best paintings.”—Saint André Bessette Born in Saint-Grégoire d’Iberville, Canada, in 1845, “Brother André” was orphaned at the age of twelve. Unable to attend school, he was forced to support himself and worked as an unskilled laborer in various textile mills in New England.   In 1867, André returned to Canada and entered the Congregation of Holy Cross as a lay brother. Known for his generosity and credited with man...

In his novel, Brideshead Revisited , Evelyn Waugh tells the story of Charles Ryder and the Marchmain family. Near the end of the novel, Ryder has an awakening, an epiphany , as he watches the final act of faith of a man he presumed shared his ambivalence toward Catholicism. Despite himself, Ryder “felt the longing for a sign…the hand moved slowly down his breast, then to his shoulder, and Lord Marchmain made the Sign of the Cross. Then I knew the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom.” In the ancient world, an epiphaneia was a visible manifestation of a god or the solemn visit of a secular ruler to the cities of his realm. Today’s celebration of the Epiphany of the Lord brings together the quiet realizations of a Charles Ryder with the grandeur of a king’s visit. In this liturgy, we are not passively remembering the journey of the Magi—...

At the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess That Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. — Philippians 2:10-11 Buried deep within the Catechism of the Catholic Church , in the fourth part—“Christian Prayer”—are three brief paragraphs that teach us something fundamental about prayer: 2664: There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. Whether our prayer is communal or personal, vocal or interior, it has access to the Father only if we pray "in the name" of Jesus. The sacred humanity of Jesus is therefore the way by which the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray to God our Father. 2665: The prayer of the Church, nourished by the Word of God and the celebration of the liturgy, teaches us to pray to the Lord Jesus. Even though her prayer is addressed above all to the Father, it includes in all the liturgical traditions forms of prayer addressed to Christ. ...

On this New Year's Day, as we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God and the World Day of Peace , I want to share with you these wonderful words from Henri Nouwen's Behold the Beauty of the Lord : The icon of the Virgin of Vladmir has gradually become for me a strong yet gentle invitation to leave the compulsive and divisive milieu of the world, and to enter the liberating and uniting milieu of God... Her eyes look inward and outward at once. They look inward to the heart of God and outward to the heart of the world, thus revealing the unfathomable unity between the Creator and the creation. They see the eternal in the temporal, the lasting in the passing, the divine in the human. Her eyes gaze upon the infinite spaces of the heart where joy and sorrow are no longer contrasting emotions, but are transcended in spiritual unity. The meaning of Mary's gaze is further accentuated by the bright stars on her forehead and shoulders (only two are visible; one is covered...