Engaging the Faith

One common objection to the real, bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist goes something like this: “How can you say the Eucharist becomes the Body and Blood of Christ when it still looks like bread and wine?...”

”They have no more wine!”

At the beginning of His public life on the hill of the Beatitudes, Our Lord preached: "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted" (Matt. 5:5).

Lazarus belonged neither to the circle of the twelve disciples who accompanied Jesus on his travels nor to the wider circle of seventy disciples, but occupied another, special, position in relation to the Master and the apostles.

Many of us carry wounds from our upbringing, from dysfunctional family life, from traumatic events, or from patterns of unhealthy behavior we developed over the years.

Our lives should be ordered to what is good. The observation is so commonplace that it can sound trite. In English, we compare good to great. ...

Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

I suppose there are few difficulties more universally felt than that of making a good thanksgiving after Communion. Spiritual writers tell us we ought not to use books, at least not for some time afterward.

I believe that old age is a gift, a very precious gift, not a calamity.

When students come to know God and are immersed into Catholic culture, they still must learn how to live the faith in the world, especially after they graduate.

After the [Gulf] war, Patty and I completed our degrees and started our family.

One of the most eye-opening statements I have ever read was Peter Kreeft’s discussion of stuff.

When we actually start acting the Gospel out in the lived reality of economics, politics, and culture, we start getting into trouble.

A French Catholic writer of a century ago, Léon Bloy, frequently wrote this sentence. It is one of the most profound sentences I have ever read: “There is only one tragedy, in the end: not to have been a saint.”

...Seeing family size as proportional to sanctity is gravely unjust to those with medical or other hardships that place large families – or having children at all – out of reach.

The rejection of reason and nature has taken root … through the replacement of critical thinking with critical theory. The latter has been the engine of academic thought for decades, and its methods pervade every discipline and subject.

Do not give in to political correctness. It is a kind of terrorism.

Another sign of the strength of American Catholicism in the 1950s was the number of converts who were received into the Church.

I once read a story about an atheist who came to faith through the witness of Christians who were living radically altered lives. This man went to work amongst the poorest of the poor in violent, crime-ridden areas.

In 1917, during one of Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, the three shepherd children were given a vision of hell. Our Lady warned that if people didn’t stop offending God, then another war would come.