Articles

The Discipleship Stage of Priestly Formation: A Thomistic and Pastoral Vision

The priestly vocation is a gift from Christ to His Church, a sacred calling that demands careful discernment, formation, and accompaniment. The Church’s contemporary vision for priestly formation has been significantly renewed through the 2 … [Read more...]

The Crippling Effect of Modern Discernment

The word discernment, in recent decades, has jumped in popularity. Part of that can be traced to a revitalization of traditional Ignatian spirituality. Presbyteral culture has become decidedly more Ignatian, through the influence of … [Read more...]

Theological Reflections on Man from the Hexameron of St. Ambrose of Milan

St. Ambrose’s work The Six Days of Creation traces a practice that had also been the practice of other great authors of the early centuries, from Origen to St. Basil, for the Greek world, to St. Augustine, for the Latin side, that is, that o … [Read more...]

Homo Liturgicus: On the Necessity of Liturgy for Men

It has been noted by many Catholic commentators over the years that in a world that seeks to silence the sound of church bells on Sunday mornings and disrobe from itself the vestiges of an ordered Christian past, among the many things on … [Read more...]

Catholic Marriage in a Fallen World

Lucia, one of the children who received a visit from the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima, wrote to Cardinal Carlo Caffarra in the early 1980s explaining that there would be a battle with Satan over marriage and the family.[1. Maria V. … [Read more...]

Loving As the Trinity Loves

Though the doctrine of the Trinity is the central mystery of our faith, it can have surprisingly minimal impact on our spiritual lives. We affirm that in God there is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but how the relationship among the Divine … [Read more...]

Corpus Christi: The Original Eucharistic Revival

At the height of his power and prestige in 1215, Pope Innocent III called the Fourth Lateran Council to put forth reforms to root out the weaknesses and wickedness of the clergy.[1. Derek Holmes and Bernard W. Bickers, A Short History of … [Read more...]

Corpus Christi, Corpus Dei

St. John Henry Newman says that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. This is true regarding our doctrines on the true presence of the Eucharist. The Council of Ephesus anticipates the teachings of transubstantiation at … [Read more...]

Remembering More

Many people remember Thomas More as a martyr for his disagreement with King Henry VIII, but the theological principle under dispute is often misremembered. This recurring amnesia inspired the historian E. E. Reynolds to answer one essential … [Read more...]

Happily Never After: The Ugly Side of Romantic Fiction and Its Effects on Marriage

In general, when someone says they enjoy reading for a hobby, one assumes that person has a wholesome hobby. However, reading of modern romance novels is often used as a means of entertainment or escape for women, and this activity can be … [Read more...]

A Deacon Without Vestments

  The Deacon is not for the altar, he is there for service. – Pope Francis It is well known that a deacon is called to the ministry of the word, of the altar, and of charity. But there can sometimes arise the danger or t … [Read more...]

The Mass and the Ascension

Making Present the Entire Paschal Mystery

“In the Eucharist and in all the sacraments we are guaranteed the possibility of encountering the Lord Jesus and of having the power of his Paschal Mystery reach us.”[1. Pope Francis, Apostolic Letter on the Liturgical Formation of the Peo … [Read more...]

The Gift in Commercial Relationships

In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, the late Pope Benedict XVI asked his sons and daughters to consider the following question: “The greatest challenge before us (…) is to demonstrate, in thinking and behavior (…) that in commercial rela … [Read more...]

Listening, Suffering, and the Young and the Old

In the Book of Tobit we have, in the prayers of Tobit and Sarah (Tobit, 3:1–6, 11–15), the young and the old who are so distressed that they want to die: that they want God to take their life from them or help them — but God helps both of th … [Read more...]

Faith in the Gospel of John as the Content of Truth

Πίστ- Root Words and Theological Exegesis

Note: This article originated as a paper in the doctoral seminar on the Gospel of John taught by Dr. Daniel Lendman at Ave Maria University in Florida. The theme of faith in the Gospel of John is deceptive. It is more important than the … [Read more...]