Spiritual Experience & Disciplines

I find a common confusion in the use of the phrase “free gift.”  Someone gives a free gift, properly speaking, if he was not bound to give it.  No legal constraint or moral obligation or physical coercion dictated the gift.  The giver gave it freely,

One enduring question facing the Church is how to engage the modern world. Gaudium et Spes called for a new era of openness and dialogue,[1] while Pope Paul VI warned that “the split between the Gospel and culture is without a doubt the drama of our time,

One of the lamentable pendulum swings in the Church today is to associate the works of mercy we are commanded by the Lord throughout scripture to perform with the “SJW” camp. It’s not an unmerited reaction: at the small CINO college where I used to work,

Mookie Wilson’s ground ball in the bottom of the 10th inning that skipped through first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs and into the outfield during Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, allowing Ray Knight to score the winning run, has been called a lot of

Nearly everyone reading this has probably heard something on the subject of vocational discernment. For those accustomed to Catholic terminology, these words may evoke images of a retreat for young people praying to find their path in life, or a novena asking for divine guidance

Prayer is as natural to a human person as is breathing, eating, sleeping and loving. For the philosopher, the poet and every human person, prayer is a connection to awe and wonder, and to all that is true, good and beautiful. Prayer opens the individual

In the midst of the Eucharistic Revival, Dr. Lawrence Feingold, seminary professor at Kenrick-Glennon and author of (among many other things) The Eucharist: Mystery of Presence, Sacrifice, and Communion, suggests that we may be missing something of importance in our focus on the Paschal Mystery. We