Tag: spirituality

Don’t Waste Your Cross this Easter

I didn’t want to interrupt Holy Week or Easter Sunday with personal news, but I have some pretty darn exciting news… I’m the newest apologist at Catholic Answers! To say that it’s a dream job is an understatement (admittedly, I’m not yet two weeks in, so many they’re going to surprise me with the terrible… Continue reading Don’t Waste Your Cross this Easter

The Spiritual Life of the Four Temperaments

What’s your temperament? Are you someone who reacts quickly to (positive or negative) things? Or do you take a bit longer to react? And when you do react, do these reactions endure, or do they pass away quickly? Broadly speaking, our natural dispositions (our “temperaments”) tend to fall into one of four categories, and they can play a major role in our quest for holiness.

Are Exorcists Biblical? (And if So, Why Don’t Protestants Have Them?)

Scripture is clear about the reality of demons, and about Jesus and the Apostles driving out demons. So why do Catholics have exorcists, and the vast majority of Protestants don’t? And what does Scripture have to say about the reality of demons, the distinction between evangelization and exorcism, and the ability of individuals to drive demons out?

Do Catholics Make Christianity Too Difficult?

A common complaint against Catholicism is that its view of the spiritual life is too difficult, that it over-complicates Christianity and doesn’t trust enough in the finished work of Christ on the Cross. That’s an appealing complaint, since it proposes a lighter, easier Christianity. But it’s a view we should be extremely suspicious of, given everything else we know about reality. So here are six observations that I think have some bearing on how we think of salvation specifically and the spiritual life more generally:

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.