Spiritual readings _ the friendship with the apostles

The Friendship with the Apostles

His Apostles should simply first be with him and share the fullness of his person and day-to-day existence as the basis for all subsequent apostolic activity  

Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis

Spiritual readings _ Herod's perplexity vs. Christain confidence

Herod's Perplexity
vs. Christian Confidence

Confidence means that something can be relied on in face of all doubt and reservation and appearances to the contrary...

Fr. Alfred Delp S.J.

Spiritual readings _ taking the lowest place

Taking the Lowest Place

"I do not want you to compare yourself to those greater or lesser than you, to a particular few, not even to a single person, etc."  (Saint Bernard)

Guigo de Ponte

Spiritual readings _ the parable of the talents

The Parable of the Talents

A faith reduced to heritage, to an inherited treasure, doesn't automatically generate interest and dividends sufficient for living now, for surviving the onslaught of reality today...  

An Editorial From Traces Magazine

Spiritual readings _ the landowner hiring labourers

The Landowner Hiring Labourers

Make no plans for yourself, except one - always seek to please God by obedience to his will.  

Fr. Lorenzo Scupoli

Spiritual readings _ how the last becomes first

How the Last Becomes First

Thus the Holy Spirit through his sevenfold grace destroys the sevenfold misery in the human soul. In its place he builds within the soul a sevenfold blessedness.

Saint Bernard, Abbot & Doctor

Spiritual readings _ Graces of the Assumption

Graces of the Assumption  

When she comes to God on the day of her Assumption, she simply returns home to the place that was hers from the start, a place so familiar to her... she thus experiences in her Assumption: this is where I always was...  

Hans Urs von Balthasar

Spiritual readings _ sharing Christ's passion

Sharing Christ’s Passion

What is lacking in Christ's Passion in me? It is my own bruises of body, of heart, of spirit, bruises of disappointment, bruises of frustration, bruises of misunderstanding, bruises of ingratitude, bruises perhaps of rejection.  

Mother Mary Francis

Spiritual readings _ true happiness

True happiness

Let her breathe more freely, and may her pain be lessened by her clinging to you so that she forgets where she now is.  

Fr. William of Saint Thierry

Spiritua readings for the feast of st. James, apostle _ how bitter is His cup!

How bitter is His cup!*

Gentle, humble lover, silent lover, rejected, in anguish, the broken heart of a lover. He experienced pain more deeply than any of us.

JEAN VANIER

Spiritua readings _ Christ my hope

Christ my hope

Mary Magdalene calls Jesus "my hope": he was the one who allowed her to be reborn, who gave her a new future, a life of goodness and freedom from evil.  

POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT XVI