The Resourcefulness of God
The Lord doesn’t need a perfect moment to do what he does. He can use—and has used — all the secular events and moments in history to bring about his plan. The detours and decisions and even things that feel like inconveniences — he’ll work with it all. And it’s not that he’s just done this once or twice…
Trust Is Hard for Everyone
Week 4 of a series on A 30-Day Personal Retreat with the Litany of Trust, by Sr. Faustina Maria Pia, S.V. Trust is hard for everybody. The grace to trust — especially for the long haul — is always given to us by the Lord. There’s always human effort in the spiritual life, but it’s all gift; all grace. It can feel like we’re never…
Trust That Mercy Is Greater
Week 2 of a series on a 30-Day Personal Retreat with the Litany of Trust, by Sr. Faustina Maria Pia, S.V. Grace is in the present; there is no grace in the past or in the future. The challenge, though, is that we’re all professional escape artists. We can get antsy and we don’t know how to be present, which means we…
Week 3 of a series on A 30-Day Personal Retreat with the Litany of Trust, by Sr. Faustina Maria Pia, S.V. There are some sins that we just can’t seem to shake — habitual sins that keep us coming back to the confessional over and over (and over) again. But no matter how consistent this sin seems, there’s one who is more…
Trust God With Your Past
Week 2 of a series on a 30-Day Personal Retreat with the Litany of Trust, by Sr. Faustina Maria Pia, S.V. Grace is in the present; there is no grace in the past or in the future. The challenge, though, is that we’re all professional escape artists. We can get antsy and we don’t know how to be present, which means we…
A Holy Hiding
Affirmation feels different when it’s public, out loud and in front of everyone — as at the Baptism of Christ and the Transfiguration, where God audibly affirmed Jesus as his beloved Son. That affirmation becomes the foundation that allows Jesus to be free; to weep and be compassionate and angry, to be a revelation…
For 30 years, Jesus lived quietly in Nazareth with Mary and Joseph; his “hidden” years. Through his normal day-to-day living of going to school and having friends and putting in a hard day’s work, Jesus made sacred the hidden space. That hidden space is where most of us live most of our lives — out of the public eye…
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said…