· 18 March 2008 | 251 words
From Br. Joseph -- This is the sixth reflection on seven signposts for the season of Lent (and for all seasons). Pray always. Prays always; if necessary, use words. Our words in prayer are very important, be them words of...
· 11 February 2008 | 898 words
Signposts point to where we want to go. Follow, or don't follow. There are seven signposts listed below because seven is the number of completeness. No claim of originality is made for the signs, excerpt maybe for their grouping. Keep...
· 26 January 2008 | 91 words
I rediscovered this piece of dialogue from the movie Matrix between Neo and the Spoon Boy in the waiting room of the Oracle's apartment: Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the...
· 13 December 2007 | 178 words
Ask for repentance in your prayer and nothing else, neither for divine lights, nor miracles, nor prophecies, nor spiritual gifts--nothing but repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will bring you the Grace of God, and God will have...
· 1 December 2007 | 648 words
You realize that prayer takes us beyond the law. When you are praying you are, in a certain sense, an outlaw. There is no law between the heart and God. (Thomas Merton) I have been mulling over this quote I discovered...
· 24 November 2007 | 17 words
Yoda has it right when it comes to prayer, "Do or not do. There is no try."...
· 23 October 2007 | 384 words
From Br. Joseph -- St. Jerome, best known as the translator of the Bible into Latin from Greek and Hebrew, is reported to have had a vision of the child Jesus. In the vision, Jesus asked Jerome why he had...
· 22 August 2007 | 273 words
I was talking with an older friend whose wife is the middle of battling the second stage of a debilitating disease. They chose to adopt two children years ago instead of passing this 50-50 chance, hereditary disease on to the...
· 16 July 2007 | 531 words
Love can wait to give; lust can't wait to get. Christopher West was on Life on the Rock last night to answer questions related to Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. Someone asked if he had any...
· 2 June 2007 | 12 words
God always answers prayers. He answers them in His way, not ours....
· 9 May 2007 | 175 words
Inspired to react to a Frederick Franck quote, I wrote this. While watching the six o'clock news, I am forced to face the poverty of my spirit. I am powerless. I am impotent. I am not in control. There is...
· 2 May 2007 | 370 words
I was in the middle of the first part of a three-step prayer yesterday evening when my whinny little four-year suddenly bursted into my room and demanded he needed a fresh pair socks at that very moment so he could...
· 20 March 2007 | 84 words
It's Spring Break, and I've stepped out of the iHermitage to look around a little. In "It's Not About Belief" by Jon Zuck, I found this intriguing little tidbit that adds another way to look at something: The Greek word...
· 7 February 2007 | 84 words
I find myself asking God to have mercy on those who died in some long ago battle or tragedy described in the pages of history. Am I a fool? Does love and prayer reach far back into time? What about...
· 31 January 2007 | 80 words
Sound -- music -- prayer no words -- emotions, feelings, but more... essence, existence, but more... A lifting up of the heart from within the heart, not the head, not the intellect, a place reachable without words, beyond words. The...
· 1 January 2007 | 342 words
I have had several people at different times tell me in counsel to "live my faith." I was usually struggling through something at the time, a bit lost and confused about certain things, and my initial response every time was,...
· 16 December 2006 | 200 words
I was listening to "All Things Considered" on NPR the other evening, and this story about atheists came on. One segment of the story described how atheists are deeply offended, especially when used by the media, by the old axiom,...
· 4 December 2006 | 447 words
A man's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his...
· 27 November 2006 | 354 words
From today's entry in God Calling: Not our wills but Thine, O Lord. Man has so misunderstood Me in this. I want no will laid grudgingly upon My Altar. I want you to desire and love My Will, because therein...
· 12 November 2006 | 121 words
From today's entry in God Calling: Jesus, hear us, and let our cry come unto Thee. That voiceless cry, that comes from anguished hearts, is heard above all the music of Heaven. It is not the arguments of theologians that...
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us