The only temptation is to trust in ways that are not God’s ways, including our own private ways.
"As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us"
"Forgive Us Our Trespasses"
"Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread"
"Thy Will Be Done"
"Thy Kingdom Come"
Preparing to participate in the reign of God means laying aside our own schemes for building our little kingdoms and organizing our worlds the way we would like them to be. To herald the coming of God’s kingdom means confessing the provisional nature of our plans and welcoming the death of our private authority, our myth of “self-rule.” In Christ, disciples share in God’s reign, not vice versa.
"Hallowed Be Thy Name"
"Who Art in Heaven"
"Our Father"
Beginning Again with the Lord’s Prayer
I want to help us begin again with the Lord’s prayer – taking on a different approach and a new perspective. I want to see if you and I can learn how to humble ourselves in praying this prayer so that we may be formed by it. This is the prayer to “Our Father,” which means that by praying it we are, above all, allowing ourselves to be his children. That is the gift Jesus gives us: he gives us his Father as our Father.
Prioritizing Faith in College
If you try to “keep your faith” in college, you’ll likely fail. “Keeping your faith” is a defensive position in a game of stamina with the odds stacked against you. You don’t prioritize something by waiting to see what happens with everything else first so you can make the important thing “fit.” That’s the biggest mistake when it comes to developing your faith in college. The first and most critical step is to make basic, intentional commitments right from the start.
Interviews with Young Adults about Faith in College
Interview in Crux regarding new book on St. Joseph: "Model of Faith"
I really enjoyed this interview with the inimitable Charlie Camosy on one of my new books, Model of Faith: Reflecting on the Litany of Saint Joseph. Check out the interview here.
This coincides with a three-night parish mission I am currently leading for Saint Joseph parish in Mishawaka, Indiana. Lots of good St. Joseph stuff going on in my life right now!
If you are interested in ordering Model of Faith, check it out here. If you have already read Model of Faith, would you mind writing a short review of the book on Amazon? Those are really important for helping the book’s visibility.
And if you or your parish/school/diocese purchase 20 or more copies of Model of Faith, I will happily offer a free one-hour Zoom seminar for your group. Just let me know!
"Do you know what I have done to you?" The Transformative Gift of Jesus in Washing the Disciples' Feet
St. Joseph, Hope of the Sick
Take a Scriptural Pilgrimage this Lent
Only Reconciliation Can Cancel Transgressions
If there is a mystery greater than the conversion of heart in the sinner who repents, then it is the mystery hidden in the wounds of the victim who forgives. Those wounds are the mysterious font of forgiveness. The victim does not just say to the perpetrator, “I forgive you for these wounds” but indeed “I forgive you from these wounds.” The victim creates a new meaning from the previously closed and definitive meaning inflicted upon him or her in the offender’s wounding act. These sites of violence are now sites of forgiveness. The peace of reconciliation flows from these wounds.
This mystery of forgiveness is hidden in the body of the crucified and risen Christ. When he appeared to his disciples on the evening of the first day of his Resurrection, he first offered them peace. “When he had said this”––in other words, only then––“he showed them his hands and his side” (Jn 20:20, RSV). They see his wounds. But what are those wounds? Those are the wounds for which they themselves are culpable. Those are the wounds of their neglect, their complicity, their betrayal, their abandonment, and their cowardice. Those are his wounds alone and not wounds they themselves also bear because they were not there with him. And yet, before he showed them his wounds, he offered them peace. Not the peace achieved through suppression and domination, but the peace of freedom (see: John 14:27).
Read the whole essay in the Church Life Journal.
6 secular films (and 6 religious films) that all Catholics should watch
From among many others that might be highlighted, I have chosen six films released in the past 20 years that demand more than passive gazing from us as viewers and which promise to draw us into a wider space of realistic imagination. For Catholics, these are the kinds of films that beckon us toward a deeper engagement with the world as it is or as it might be. These are films that urge us to reckon with ourselves and the mystery of being human. These are also the kind of films that can forge bonds of communion between religious persons and nonreligious persons, who together may ponder and question the deeper significance of who we are, who we have been and who we might become.
Prophet of Longing: The Music of Audrey Assad
There are some prayers so tender and so true that they seem to say everything that needs to be said with only a few words. From the sanctuary of Saint Joseph Church in South Bend such a prayer arose with melodic sweetness, offered on behalf of many from Catholic singer/songwriter Audrey Assad: “I’m a broken stone, so lay me in the house you’re building.” …
