Spiritual greatness has nothing to do with being greater than others. It has everything to do with being as great as each of us can be. True sanctity is precisely drinking our own cup and trusting tha...
Spiritual fatherhood has nothing to do with power or control. It is a fatherhood of compassion.
Solitude is not simply a means to an end. Solitude is its own end. It is the place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world. Solitude is the...
Prayer is often considered a weakness, a support system, which is used when we can no longer help ourselves. But this is only true when the God of our prayers is created in our own image and adapted t...
Prayer helps us overcome the fear that is related to building our life just on the interpersonal—What does he or she think of me? Who is my friend? Who is my enemy? Whom do I like? Dislike? Who reward...
Prayer for others, therefore, cannot be seen as an extraordinary exercise that must be practiced from time to time. Rather, it is the very beat of the compassionate heart.
Poverty, pain, struggle, anguish, agony, and even inner darkness may continue to be part of our experience. They may even be God’s way of purifying us. But life is no longer boring, resentful, depress...
Our hearts and minds desire clarity. We like to have a clear picture of a situation, a clear view of how things fit together, and clear insight into our own and the world’s problems. But just as in na...
Once I look at the story of the prodigal son with the eyes of faith, the return of the prodigal becomes the return of the Son of God who has drawn all people into himself and brings them home to his h...
Much of our ministry is pervaded with judgments. Often quite unconsciously we classify our people as very good, good, neutral, bad, and very bad. These judgments influence deeply the thoughts, words,...
Mourning our losses is the first step away from resentment and toward gratitude. The tears of our grief can soften our hardened hearts and open us to the possibility to say thanks.
Look, my soul, at the way one human being tries to inflict as much pain on another as possible; look at these people plotting to bring harm to their fellows; look at these parents molesting their chil...
Lifting our cup means sharing our life so we can celebrate it. When we truly believe we are called to lay down our lives for our friends, we must dare to take the risk to let others know what we are l...
John Henry Newman views the visible world as a veil so that all that exists or happens visibly, conceals and yet suggests, and above all serves, a greater system of persons, facts and events beyond it...
Jesus is deeply connected to the earth on which he walks. He observes the forces of nature, learns from them, teaches about them, and reveals that the God of Creation is the same God who sent him to g...
It is this nothingness (in solitude) that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget m...
It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. Through prayer we can carry in our he...
It is important to think about the Church not as over there but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer.
It is hard for me to imagine what it means to be a complete foreigner, a person to whom no one shows any sign of recognition.
It is as if we have been wandering in a foreign land looking for peace and purpose in our lives and a true sense of who we are. Jesus stands in our midst and beckons us home so that we can be restored...