Today’s Reflection

The Lenten season, a period of approximately six weeks of repentance – Christians are encouraged to practice different means of expressing repentance – fasting, the giving of alms, atonement and self-denial. A Lenten discipline that many people take upon themselves is the giving up of favorite foods, entertainments or other within reach items so as…

Trials are not only good for us, but necessary for our spiritual growth, especially if endured with the right disposition. During hard times, God helps us see that control is really an illusion. We’re not in charge. Our lives don’t even belong to us. We would cease to exist if the Holy Spirit stopped actively…

If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence, like the sunlight, will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God. More than all things, love silence. It is fruitful in a way that words cannot describe. In the beginning we have to…

Your business now is to live alone with God and to be as though you and God were alone in the universe. You must cross the desert and dwell in it to receive the grace of God. It is here one drives out everything that is not God. The soul needs to enter into this…

Let us make an unconditional surrender of self to God, and seek to do a little more for him than is strictly required. Let us say, “Lord, you are enough for me; you and your cross.” The cross in some form or other will always be with us. It may come from our superiors. It…

We must try to be children who realize that the Lord is such a good Father, by loving us as his children, he has taken us into his house, in the middle of the world. . .Our Father in heaven pardons any offense when his child returns to him, when he repents and asks for…

How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil. If the drops of oil run out, the light of the lamp will cease, and the bridegroom will say, “I do not know you” (Matthew 25:12). What are these drops of oil in our lamps? They are the small things of…

Look at the trees of the forest. See how sturdy and beautiful they are, how tall they grow, and how smooth is their bark. Yet when we plant a garden, we prefer other kinds of trees, such as pomegranate and olive trees. This is because we want trees that bear fruit. We are the trees…

Jesus on the cross said these beautiful and sad words, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28). Since then, throughout the ages, all of humanity has echoed these words . . .Now, O God, with all my heart, I say the sorrowful words, “I am thirsty.” I am thirsty for the peace you alone give, which transforms…

Most of Christ’s earthly life was hidden. He was hidden in his mother’s womb, he was hidden in Egypt and in Nazareth. During his public life he was hidden often, when he fled into ‘a mountain to pray.’ During the forty days of his risen life, again and again he disappeared and hid himself from…