I remember looking up at the crucifix hanging in little St. Augustine’s church as a ten-year-old, thinking to myself, “I really like looking at Jesus on the Cross… but am I going to wake up one day and get bored of it? Or get bored of the Mass? It’s always the same.” Clearly, I didn’t…
When St. Thomas Aquinas’ sister asked him how to become a saint, he answered her in two words: “Desire it.” To be human is to be a creature of desire – a hunger in the flesh. I think we sometimes underestimate the power of desire in our spiritual lives. It’s easy to overcomplicate holiness, identifying…
The fruit of the third luminous mystery is the spiritual program of our entire lives as Catholic Christians: to repent and be converted, one day at a time. As Fr. Thomas Dubay pointed out in his treasure-of-a-book, Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer, the first recorded words of Christ’s public ministry were a call to conversion: “Be converted,…
As friends of a small shrine dedicated to Our Lady, the second luminous mystery has a special significance for our lives: the first of Jesus’ public miracles was mediated by the intercession of Our Lady. Our Lady simply had to look into her Son’s eyes imploringly as she stated the needs of her soon-to-be children…
In the first Luminous mystery, our Saviour comes before the Father in a spirit of humility, submitting himself to John’s baptism of repentance on behalf of the sinner, in order “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15). When He comes up out of the water, “the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God…