Yesterday, I was on the local Catholic radio station here in Kansas City, and one of the topics that came up was growth in prayer, and in particular, the need for a nightly “examination of conscience” or “examen.” I shared the “3-2-1 Examen,” which I learned from a priest of Kansas City- St. Joseph, Fr.… Continue reading The “3-2-1 Examen”: An Easy Way to Revolutionize Your Spiritual Life
Tag: prayer
The Power of a Mother’s Prayer
What do St. Augustine’s, St. Thomas Aquinas’, St. Bernard’s, and St. Francis de Sales’ mothers have in common? And what does it show about moms and dads having proper priorities?
Don’t Half-@$$ Christianity
Modern moralism preaches that, if you want to go to Heaven, it’s important to try to be basically a good person. Jesus Christ preaches something altogether different. Here’s why halfhearted Christianity is worse than paganism, and what you can do about it.
Living as a Child of God: The Power of Petitionary Prayer
“Spiritual childhood” can sound like saccharine baby talk, in a way that most of us (particularly men) find unrelatable and even uncomfortable. After all, doesn’t St. Paul say “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways” (1 Cor. 13:11)? But we cannot just leave spiritual childhood to those who like being treated like children: it’s the only way to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So how do we grow in this spirituality?
Does Prayer Change Things?
Does prayer change anything? And if so, is that a good thing? There are three major objections to consider:
First, that due to predestination, everything is set in place, and our prayers can’t change anything.
Second, that “prayer doesn’t change things; it changes me.” So the only one changed by prayer is me. After all, God is perfect and changeless.
Third, due to God’s omniscience and omnipotence (that is, that He knows everything and is all-powerful), His plan is perfect, so our prayers shouldn’t do anything. After all, we’re not going to tell God anything that He doesn’t already know, and we’re not going to have a better plan than the one He already has, right?
Is it Wrong to Pray to Angels?
A Baptist preacher on the radio this morning claimed that the only person in the Bible to encourage praying to angels was Satan, when he tempted our Lord in the wilderness. This claim is wrong, but in a revealing way.
The Spirituality of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower
St. Thérèse was only 24 years old when she died in 1897, but she quickly became one of the most famous Saints in the world. Pope St. John Paul II declared her a “Doctor of the Church” for her spiritual writings. So what can we learn from this St. Thérèse, the “Little Flower?” That’s the theme of this talk that I gave at Christ the King on July 26th. I look first at the way her holiness was tied to the holiness of her family (and the importance of living married life well) and then her distinctive teachings on prayer, especially her famous “Little Way,” that Pope Pius XI described as a sure path of salvation.
St. John Vianney on Prayer
St. Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, a parish priest in a small town in France, became world famous and, after his death, was declared the patron saint of parish priests around the world. Pope John XXIII marked the 100th anniversary of his death with an encyclical on the priesthood, and Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed the Year for Priests in 2009 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Vianney’s death. So what did this extraordinary parish priest have to say to laypeople about how to pray? Listen to this talk to find out!
Holiness in Daily Life: St. Francis de Sales, Blessed John Henry Newman, and St. Josemaría Escrivá
Most of us aren’t called to be priests or monks or nuns, yet so many spiritual authors assume that their readers live in convents, monasteries, or rectories. So what about the spiritual life of everyone else? Here are three takes on holiness in daily life (from St. Francis de Sales, Blessed John Henry Newman, and… Continue reading Holiness in Daily Life: St. Francis de Sales, Blessed John Henry Newman, and St. Josemaría Escrivá
The Eastern Church Fathers on Prayer
Continuing the series on “the Saints and prayer,” I spoke yesterday on prayer and the Eastern Church Fathers. I wanted them as a change of pace for two reasons: I find that Catholics in the West are much more familiar with Western Church Fathers like Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, and Leo, than they are with Eastern… Continue reading The Eastern Church Fathers on Prayer