"Advent Challenge"

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Fr. Tom Euteneuer, the President of Human Life International, has put forth a challenge to faithful Christians in his latest Spirit & Life column. I am taking up his challenge, and I pray that all of you will, too!

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Learning Virtue from St. Martin de Porres

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[This post appeared originally on my full site, which is now no longer in operation, in November 2012.] It seems that more should be written about a saint from whom we can learn so many lessons in virtue.  Yet that is not the case with St. Martin de Porres, from whom we have much to learn about humility, detachment, fasting, justice, and charity.  The website of the St. Martin de Porres Shrine and Institute (located in my own diocese; a wonderful initiative with a beautiful chapel) offers a mere four paragraphs of biographical information, while other sites ( here , here , and here ) devote no more than 10 sentences to this exemplar of heroic virtue.  Surely, Brother Martin, who was so humble in this life, finds that to be a fitting scenario even after his death. From the very earliest days of his life, he embraced his lowly situation.  He desired to do nothing more than glorify the Creator by serving creatures.  He reached out to slaves, orphan...
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Day Five of Forty: The Virtue of Gratitude

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Life hands us lemons.  If it's not one thing, it's another.  These are but two common phrases among many others that express one's frustrations with the circumstances of life.  There is no doubt that everyone who is typing and reading this post has experienced such frustration, maybe even today.  We must never forget, however, that our Lord has given these circumstances to us in order to bring us to perfection in holiness.  The virtue of gratitude allows us to receive those difficulties as gifts, even if they aren't pleasurable. Gratitude causes us to give thanks to God Almighty while He grants conditions that help us to work out our salvation.  As in all virtues, Jesus Christ is the perfect exemplar.  We receive audible verification of this fact when we hear the priest say during the Eucharistic prayer at Mass, "At the time he was betrayed and entered willingly into his Passion, he took bread and, giving thanks , broke it, and gave it to his discipl...
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Hope During Difficult Times

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Catholics are living in difficult times.  There are multiple, huge scandals that have come to light in recent weeks.  Now, even segments of the hierarchy seems to be pitted against each other.  It seems to be getting more heated and dire as each day passes.  It surely is not easy for the laity and faithful clergy to stand by and watch as all this unfolds. This post is not intended to add to the enormous (and growing) mountain of commentary about the scandals; about who's in the wrong or in the right.  There has been plenty written and spoken about this, including a wonderful homily from my own pastor .  I do, however, want to provide just a simple and quick commentary on a passage of Scripture that I think can help us. Horace Vernet, Jeremiah on the Ruins of Jerusalem (1844, close-up) In the very first chapter of the book of the prophet Jeremiah, we read God's direction to the ancient prophet, and we should read it as the Lord speaking directly to u...
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