Aflame for Christ

The "American way" is to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, work hard, and make life happen by your own efforts. Then why is life so doggone difficult? Perhaps because we were never meant to face our challenges and crosses on our own, but rather with the strength of God. We can find peace and strength by surrendering to God's will, finding a "holy indifference" to success or failure, poverty or...

When faced with the Lord's immense power and might, the proper response is awe and trembling. Isaiah was overwhelmed; Peter recognized his insignificance. But rather than being opposed, fear of the Lord directs us to properly love the Lord, as we seek to conform our life to His beautiful, holy will.

The two elderly saints in today's Gospel, Sts. Simeon and Anna, demonstrate perfectly the importance of perseverance. They prayed for the coming of the Messiah for decades; were faithful to fasting and sacrifice; were vigilant as they looked for Him; and stayed true to their vocations. We, too, are called to persevere in the Christian life, for only those who persevere will be able to win the crow...

The little-known apparition of Our Lady of Buen Suceso, given to a Spanish nun in Ecuador in the early 1600s, is shocking in its predictions of many world events. Our Lady tells of the Dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption, which would not be revealed for another 200+ years, and speaks about serious corruption in the Church and in the world during the 20th Century. Looking back at thi...

The Word of God has the power to change you! It is God's Spirit-breathed word, inspired and inerrant, bringing with it the power of God. How can we as Catholics read the Word? And how can we pray with it, so that God speaks His Word to us? Tune in to find out!

The most powerful form of prayer, of course, is the Mass, where it is Christ Who prays in and through His church. Tune in to find out how He is living and present in the Mass, the Sacraments, and in the daily Liturgy of the Hours which unites the Church in prayer, and how these rich encounters with God's grace can be accessed by the everyday Christian!

Jesus' first miracle is at the Wedding Feast of Cana. But changing water into wine was not a fun party trick, nor a desire to have a good time...it was a rich theological symbol that inaugurated the Kingdom of God, showed Christ as the true Bridegroom, and brought the Old Covenant to an end as it revealed the New. All that from a short miracle story? Yes! Tune in to unpack the richness of this pas...

One of the biggest obstacles to a relationship with our loving God is the fact that evil exists. How can God be good or powerful if bad things happen to good people? Throughout history, philosophers and theologians have struggled to deal with and understand the problem of evil. Thankfully, through the Cross, the problem of Evil has a solution, when suffering becomes transformed into love.

Baptism demands that we seek holiness. Holiness means to live out our vocations in the perfection of charity - being who we are, but being it for God. Our vocations give us the surest path to the holiness God has destined for each one of us!

Picking up where we left off, we learn about the great spiritual writers such as Thomas a Kempis, St. John of the Cross, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and St. Francis de Sales, and how God used them to combat some of the spiritual heresies of their time. We also delve into some of the modern Catholic movements which have a rich spirituality of their own, showing that there are many beautiful ways to liv...

Everyone is searching for happiness. But like a crazy game of hide-and-seek, most people are looking for happiness in all the wrong places. If we look for happiness in things outside of ourselves, we will build our lives on fragile foundation. But if we look to the One Who dwells within through grace, then nothing can take our happiness away from us. As the Magi teach us, pursuing the happiness of...

Throughout the history of the Church, the saints have taught us how to pray. From the Desert Fathers in their relentless pursuit of holiness, to the practical wisdom of St. Benedict, to the mystical unions of St. Catherine of Siena, the saints reveal different aspects of spirituality that can be helpful as we, too, seek the Face of God!

Christ came two thousand years ago to bring a spectacular gift - grace, which is God's Divine Life within us. This gift is meant to prepare us for when He comes again in glory, where we can inherit the Kingdom with Him. Let us allow His first coming to take effect in our lives through the action of grace, so that we may be worthy of rejoicing when He comes again!

Behind every great man is a great woman, as they say - and during Advent we frequently reflect on the role of our Blessed Mother in bringing the Word-Made-Flesh into the world. Let us examine how God prepared her for such an august and amazing mission - and how we can foster a devotion to her and imitate her virtues!

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that God reaches out to us in one of three ways: through truth, beauty or goodness. These are classically called the "Transcendentals", and they are ways in which God woos every human being. How can we see God through these paths, and why are they windows into God Himself? Tune in to find out!

When someone is fully committed to something for a long time - a sports team, a parish, a family, community - they will do everything possible to make it as great as it can be. When God took on flesh, He "threw His lot in" with humanity, committing to stay with us forever. Hence, He has a vested interest in making us the saints we were created to be!

On our journey to God, we have an Enemy who hates us - Satan, the devil, Lucifer. Find out how he impacts our lives and attempts to thwart our spiritual progress, and how we can use the tools that the Church gives us to overcome the snares of the Evil One so that we can reach Heaven safely!

Our Gospels make it clear that the Incarnation is not the same as the ancient myths of a god-man. Rather, He truly took on flesh in a historical context. He is not an apparition, but a true human, because what He did not take on, He did not redeem - and we desperately wanted to have our God as a Divine Friend - a God with "skin on" so we can see and love Him!

How do we know if we are making progress in the spiritual life? There IS a goal - union with God. But are there any guideposts to understand how far we've come, whether we're on the right path, and how far we have to go? Yes! Through the teachings of St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, we can outline a beautiful path through the stages of the spiritual life to reach the very presence o...

The prophets predicted that God would raise up a person to restore Israel to its former glory. We ended up with so much more - God incarnate, the Alpha and Omega, Who has come to save the entire universe and restore all creation in Himself. We begin our series on the Incarnation by looking at the radical nature of this Jesus - what do we believe about His humanity and divinity?

We all know how to "say prayers" but what does it mean to pray? Prayer is nothing else but a conversation with God. Every conversation involves speaking - we speak to God through Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. We listen to God through the Scriptures, music, the liturgy, and in many other ways. Today we dive into the basics of prayer - how to have a real relationship with th...

We live in a post-Christian society, one whose values are frequently in opposition to the Kingdom of Christ. What are some of the cultural philosophies that set themselves against Christ, and how will His Kingdom begin to reign in our minds, our families, and our world?

A Christian should be ready, at all times, to do four things: to pray, to share our faith, to do an act of charity, and to die. Are you ready for all four? Most of us would hesitate to say we're ready to die. But it is coming for all, without exception. How do we prepare well for this most critical moment in our life, so that we can face it without fear but with confidence in the Mercy of God? Tun...

Love wants to give - as Pope St. John Paul II said, "Love is self-gift." But all we can offer God is so, so small. Luckily when it is united to Jesus' phenomenal self-offering on the Cross and united to Our Lady's love, our tiny gift becomes multiplied and purified, fit for the King!

Love must be free for it to be authentic. Then how can God command us to love Him? He does so because loving Him is our happiness! We do not always "feel" loving towards God - so how do we love Him if we don't feel it? It's simple - we choose to love Him. If we go all-in and choose Him above all else, we will eventually feel His presence, all in His good time.