Book Review: The Catholic Worker Movement – Intellectual and Spiritual Origins by Mark and Louise Zwick

(My husband showed me this book in a half-price bookstore a couple of years ago and after reading it my life has never been the same. This book introduced me to the Catholic Worker movement, which I barely knew beforehand. It now stands as the first of many books I have read about the movement [...]

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Christ and Inter-Religious Dialogue

This speech was given to the Aresty Research Symposium in Rutgers, Spring 2008.
Ever since the beginning of Christianity, one of the main problems was evangelization. How were Christians supposed to propose what they call the “gospel,” the “good news” to all people as Jesus commanded them to (Matt. 28: 19-20)? Most of Jesus’ disciples were [...]

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Worship is Freedom

The setting is first century second Temple Judaism. It is hard to fully describe the worldview of second Temple Judaism because it was pluralistic. We know that there were many eschatological movements and it is safe to say that “eschatology” in that time meant a restoration of Israel and the cosmos under the one God. [...]

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Musings on Tragedy

To Louis Feliciano
All tragedies leave us in awe. No other being in the world except man is affected by such events, whether they are natural disasters or moral evils. Tragedy reminds us our place in this world, that death is not something we can control. It reminds us of our own solitude in front of [...]

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On Mortification and the Church

Being a gift to Christ means to give him what we value most: life. What destroys life, what makes it ugly, is sin. It is ugly because it destroys a friendship, it destroys the relationship with the people you love. Friends give you the certainty that you are loved and you cannot help but love [...]

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Recommended summer reads for Catholic women (and men too)

Here are some excellent books I have either read or am currently reading this summer and thought of recommending them to our readers:
1. Elisabeth Leseur: Selected Writings–Elisabeth was a lay French woman married to a staunch agnostic living in the late 19th century and first decade of the 20th century. Her husband, Félix, returned to [...]

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The Mass: On Silence

To Peggy Mereles
 
On the topic of silence, the story of Christ and the woman caught in adultery can educate us (Jn. 8:2-11). The scribes and the Pharisees were trying to test Jesus and brought forth a woman who was caught in adultery. The Jewish leaders argued that the Mosaic Law teaches that they must stone [...]

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The Mass: Part 2

To Peggy Mereles
 
 
“Father, they are your gift to me,” says Christ. How are we a gift to Christ? This means that we are given to Christ from the Father. But how exactly are we given? In theological terms, this is called election. It is being possessed by God. We are possessed by the Father by [...]

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The Mass

To Peggy Mereles

One of the main problems with Catholics today is not that they do not understand the Mass, but that they seem to limit their spiritual life in it. How do we extend our experiences of the Mass to our workplace, our homes, and our schools? We hear over and over again in homilies [...]

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A Talk on Marriage Part 2

Here is the second part.

What makes you certain that the other person loves you? What makes you certain that there is no one like your beloved? Certainly something attracted you to her, maybe her looks and her personality. Love comes about from beauty. The more you spent your time with her the more you [...]

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A Talk on Marriage Part 1

I gave a talk on marriage without anything written. To my surprise, someone wrote down what I said. Here is part 1 of the text. I did not touch anything and you will probably find many grammatical mistakes, but this is how the talk came about.
 
It is a great temptation to think that we can [...]

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Musings on Eternal Love

Last week I went to the nursing home for the last time. I have been volunteering there for three years and I have always found myself experiencing a silent joy that no one can take away from me. I have always thought of volunteering there as bringing Christ to them. But most of the time, I [...]

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Trinity Sunday: Understanding the Triune God

It is that time of the year again: Trinity Sunday. As my seminary professor admits, it is a day that many young priests simply do not look forward to, because they have to give a homily about “three in one and one in three”! How can one condense a mystery of our faith in a [...]

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Reflections on Jesus’ Prayer

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”
 
“Eternal life”—what do these words mean? It is the life that we want. All of us had some experiences of fulfillment, events that made us happy and free, experiences that gave us recognition [...]

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Away for a while…

It’s been slow around here lately… Sadly, a lot of things have been going on that have prevented me from writing for this blog and Vox Nova. School and work have kept me busy and Michael and I are engaged to be married in September, so we will be focusing our time preparing mentally [...]

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Faithfulness to Christ

To Pilar Timpane, for her birthday
What does it mean to obey, to be faithful to Christ? Our obedience depends on our certainty of God’s faithfulness. This is what the great words “Thy will be done” really mean. They are a reminder of our original dependence and most of all, His faithfulness which is His affection, [...]

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“Descended into Hell” — Exploring God’s silence

This article of the Apostle’s Creed is certainly by far the most controversial for many Christians, but why? At first, it is hard to believe that the Son of God who is sinless would descend into hell, which we understand it to be a place where there is only pain and suffering.
As this can be [...]

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Reflections on John 4

To Alexi-Noelle
Christ did not come to this world with a type of spirituality but a penetrating gaze that infuses into the human heart a love that lasts forever. In the eyes of Christ, we encounter God’s human sympathy that shatters the hardness of the heart and our indifference towards our destiny. The more we look [...]

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New Contributor

Apolonio Latar who had been a previous reader of my former blog Evangelical Catholicism and a current reader and frequent commenter of this blog will be joining me in writing for this blog.  Apolonio’s thoughtful reflections and comments add an invaluable insight to the main theme I write about here: love.  Not a love of [...]

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Falling in Love

(In honor of St. Valentine’s day and the season of Lent, I thought I would share a quote that my professor of Systematic theology gave us last year at the end of the semester. )
Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is,
than falling in Love in a quite absolute way.
What you are in [...]

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Fast and Abstinence in Perspective

My friend Soutenus from Catholic Notebook has a wonderful post on where she puts fasting and abstinence in perspective. The post looks at fasting during the Lenten season keeping in mind how our brothers and sisters in Haiti, specifically, suffer from hunger.  Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. I think [...]

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A Case Against Mardi Gras

Having lived over eight years in South Louisiana I am somewhat familiar with the hype around Mardi Gras in Catholic and non-Catholic circles. I have never been part of any of the floats or have gone to the balls, but I have gone to the parades to catch some beads and plastic cups or [...]

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Growing in virtue this Lenten Season

“What are you giving up for Lent?” we are often asked during this time of year. This question usually refers to which specific food or drink we are going to stop eating or drinking during this season. Some go further and want to give up TV shows or the Internet. Although these practices of [...]

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Transforming the world by being a people “in love”

We love because he first loved us.” (1 Jn 4:16-19)
One of the things that I struggle with the most is evangelization. I have friends and family members who either do not believe in God or are baptized Catholics who have left the Church. I do not want to force my beliefs on them, [...]

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What is the true meaning of the Trinity in our daily lives?

(Busy, busy, busy… Sorry for not updating the blog lately, but since the beginning of the year I have been working late hours and will be going on business travel the next couple of weeks. On top of that I just started another semester at school, so I have not had much of spare [...]

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