Four years ago, I started this blog as an extension of my pro-life apostolate. As you’ve probably noticed, I also write a lot about suffering and the Cross. That’s because it has been my observation after several years of pro-life advocacy that one of the underlying causes of the culture of death (abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, cloning/ESCR) is a desire … Read More
Pain: God’s Megaphone to Rouse a Deaf World
A hattip and many, many thanks to Mark Pickup for finding this great clip from Shadowlands, in which Anthony Hopkins plays C.S. Lewis answering that age-old question: does God allow suffering? and, more importantly, WHY???: I hope you caught this part: “It is precisely because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering.” In his post Pickup … Read More
Why the Cross Matters
From a discourse of St Andrew of Crete – in the Office of Readings for today’s Feast of the Triumph of the Cross: Had there been no cross, Christ could not have been crucified. Had there been no cross, life itself could not have been nailed to the tree. And if life had not been nailed to it, there would … Read More
An Edifying Cup of CoCoa
I know, it’s not exactly cold outside yet, but temperatures are surely cooling down here in the Midwest (especially with some storms in the area here) and with the windows open and the attic fan on, there is a cool breeze coming through the house that, while refreshing, started making me a little chilly. I’m not a regular coffee drinker … Read More
Take Up Your Cross
In the book Saint Gianna Molla: Wife, Mother, Doctor, Pietro Molla recalls his wife saying to him as she was dying: Pietro, I am cured now. Pietro, I was already over there and do you know what I saw? Some day I will tell you. But because we were so happy, we were too comfortable with our marvelous babies, full … Read More
The Apostolate of Suffering Redux
I just started reading Brian J. Gail’s novel Fatherless about men in the “post-Pill generation.” I’m only a chapter in, but I was just struck by a paragraph at the very end of Ch. 1 that reminded me of something I’ve been wanting to re-post since I talked about it when I was on Life on the Rock last month. … Read More
How Do You Respond to the Cross?
The post I did yesterday reminds me of one of the meditations on my annual retreat this year. During one of his homilies, Father noted that on the day Jesus died there were three different reactions to the cross: 1. The bad thief who rebelled against it 2. The good thief who was merely resigned to it and 3. Christ … Read More
Encouragement: The Cross
Because we always need to be reminded: Unto many this seemeth an hard saying, “Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow Jesus” (Matt. 16:24). But much harder will it be to hear that last word, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire” (Matt. 25:41). For they who now willingly hear and follow the word of the Cross, shall … Read More
Thanks, Fr. Mark!
It was such a pleasure to meet both Doug Barry and Fr. Mark Mary, hosts of Life on the Rock on EWTN, the other week. I did not know this, but Fr. Mark has a blog called Power & Witness and in his most recent post he mentions
Added Inspiration
The Inspiring Story of Garvan Byrne, posted earlier today, also reminds me of something Pope Benedict wrote in his second encyclical, Spe Salvi: It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love. (37) … Read More