March 30, 2021
What would I be willing to sacrifice for this person to turn back to God? Would I be willing to trust God to do whatever it takes ... no matter what?
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March 14, 2021
I love hearing people’s prayer stories — how they put their faith on the line with Jesus (or, in some cases, with his mother, who is also a powerful pray-er. Kind of like my mother). And somehow, their prayers were answered, often above and beyond what they originally asked. Now, God is not some great Bubblegum Ball Machine in the Sky. You can’t force his hand with selfish demands, like a petulant teenager. “Okay, God, either you give me ____ or I won’t speak to you again” won’t wash with the Almighty. Or his mother. But God is a patient Father — a patient adoptive […]
January 8, 2021
The first thing you’d notice was not his collar, but his smile. Despite the great sorrows he had experienced — or perhaps because of them — Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga was full of joy. I think that this joy was actually a source and sign of his healing gift, for both things emanated from the same place: an unshakable trust in the God who never failed him. Not when he lost first his father, then his brother and mother and dozens of members of his own family, in the genocide against the Tutsi people. Not when his own parishioners cast him out of the parish he […]
November 9, 2020
These sober words were recorded by Dorothy’s granddaughter in a 2017 issue of America magazine, recounting how difficult it was for Dorothy to see her dear daughter walk away from the Catholic faith — the daughter whose birth had lured Dorothy into its fold. Whether the crisis of faith is that of a loved one or our own, it is seldom experienced in a vacuum. And whether the source of that disillusionment is from a temporary setback or the culmination of a season of unspoken angst, Dorothy reminds us that the solution is the same: solidarity, compassion, and intercession. St. Dorothy, pray for us.
November 4, 2020
If when an answer I did not expect comes to a prayer which I believed I truly meant, and I shrink back from it; If the burden my Lord asks me to bear be not the burden of my heart’s choice, and I fret inwardly and do not welcome His will, then I know nothing of Calvary love. (If, by Amy Carmichael, p.48). A prolific writer and missionary to India, Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) founded Dohnavur Fellowship, where she served for 56 years, rescuing dozens of “temple children” to know and love Christ. Elisabeth Elliot’s biography of “Amma,” A Chance to Die, was such a […]