Blessed is the Kingdom

Seeking The Kingdom In All Things

Thoughts from the Confessional

| September 7, 2011

Last night, as I walked up the the aisle towards the confessional, I caught something out of the corner of my eye that made me smile. A young woman was sitting in a pew, phone in hand, preparing for the sacrament with the now famous confession app. Besides on my own phone, it is the [...]

Irene-isms

| July 28, 2011

Each time I attend a workshop with my teacher Irene, I am struck by the number ways she can relate the writing of icons to the spiritual life. Today I decided to dub her wise iconographic sayings as Irene-isms. One of this day’s many Irene-isms was her explanation on how to correct something that goes [...]

You’ve Got A Friend In Me

| May 23, 2011

Reveal all your thoughts and feelings regularly to a trusted person. Maxim #14 Everyone needs a trusted friend who is there to listen without judgement and to share in all the ups and downs of life. It is essential to the Christian life to have someone who knows us well enough to offer good advice [...]

Called to Continual Repentance & Thanksgiving

| April 1, 2011

Often I am approached by members of our parish who have recently attended our weekend mass in Spanish who are confused by the small number of those who receive communion at this celebration of the liturgy. They are usually blown away by the high level of prayer and energy that they have experienced, but not [...]

Fighting the armies of Satan

| January 13, 2011

This week I came across a passage in Williston Walker’s A History of the Christian Church that has had me pondering about the early Christian martyrs. Walker writes, In the face of persecution, imprisonment, and death, believers understood that they were being called, by unwavering confession of their Lord, to share the suffering by which [...]

The Fifth Gospel

| November 13, 2010

Today as we were visiting the Dead Sea I was reminded of something that was shared with me on my first pilgrimage to the Holy Land. One of the people we met described the land where the Biblical events took place as the fifth gospel. We have the four written gospels, and we also have [...]

Chrysostom on Genesis

| October 24, 2010

He calls personally: “The Lord God called Adam,” the text says, “and said to him, ‘Adam, where are you?’” See how much force lies concealed in this brief expression. You see, the very act of calling is a mark of great love beyond all telling, as it is a mark of great goodness to give [...]