Through the approved apparitions of Fatima, Akita Japan, Kibeho Rwanda, San Nicolas Argentina and others God and Our Lady have made it absolutely clear that if enough people answer the call and pray the Rosary, souls can be saved, and world events can be altered. When the 3rd Secret of Fatima, a vision which showed a world in ruins and many souls lost, was revealed publicly in the year 2000, then Cardinal Ratzinger who became Pope Benedict the XVI, explained in a press conference that the secret...
Sep 12, 2019•25 min
I want to end this three day reflection on Joy with a distinction between two kinds of love. We’ll call the first existential love, and define it as taking delight in the existence of another. In everyday English, I think we usually express this love as when you “like” somebody, i.e., when that person’s presence gives you pleasure. There’s also what we could call perfective love, which is desiring and working for the fulfillment of another. This is where we dedicate ourselves to helping someone ...
Sep 11, 2019•25 min
Joy is the God-given passion or emotion that prompts us to rest in the good. After I climb the mountain, I want to rest on the summit and take in the beauty of 360-degree view that, makes me realize life is bigger and better than all my projects and problems. This allows me to celebrate reality. Then I can peacefully walk back down the mountain and say, “Life is good.” What do you like to do that makes you realize life is bigger and better than your projects problems, that thing from which you w...
Sep 10, 2019•25 min
A sobering article entitled Death by Loneliness documented that people are committing suicide and mass murders at an alarming rate because people are missing four essential ingredients to happiness: Family, friends, relationship with God that also gives meaning and purpose to suffering and finally, meaningful work. Meaningful work and a sense of achievement are vital to happiness. But production and achievement alone are insufficient. We also need joy, we need to delight in, rest in the work we ...
Sep 09, 2019•24 min
Today, nine months after the Immaculate Conception of Mary, we celebrate her birthday on September 8. Today is the birthday of our spiritual mother. God does not need to use many words to make some of the most important things happen: God said, “Let there be light” and the entire universe sprang into existence. God said, “This is my body.” And bread was transformed into God in the Eucharist at the Last Supper. From the Cross in God said, “Behold, your mother.” What God says become real, and from...
Sep 08, 2019•24 min
Our Lady is calling us to a greater quality and quantity of prayer. I have been encouraging you to spend more time in silence and solitude with Jesus in prayer. So what do you think people give as the number one reason for not spending time in prayer? They are too busy. We all think we are too busy… CCC 2742 We have not been commanded to work, to keep watch and to fast constantly, but it has been laid down that we are to pray without ceasing. Evagrius (cf. 1 Thess. 5:17) I do not believe we lack...
Sep 07, 2019•23 min
We should pray the Rosary every day because Our Lady came from heaven as aked us to do so. On May 13, 1917 Our Lady requested: “Pray the Rosary everyday, in order to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war”. Sister Lucia, one of the three children to whom Mary appeared at Fatima explained why she thought Our Lady asked everyone to pray the Rosary every day: I think God is Father; and as Father He adapts Himself to the needs and possibilities of his children. Now if God, through Our La...
Sep 06, 2019•22 min
God’s plan is for the whole Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to live in you and through you. God wants to be the life, love and power pulsing through you. If we would give Him room and let Him live in and through us we would be perfectly happy, have meaning and purpose in life, be filled with joy, totally at peace, undisturbed by any storm, wise to make the best decisions, powerful to overcome any difficulty, loving, energetic, able to move mountains literally, convert countless souls and h...
Sep 05, 2019•23 min
In every approved apparition from the Miraculous Medal to the reported apparitions of Medjugorje, Jesus and Mary have called us to help them save souls and to change world events by our prayer and suffering. Yesterday, the mission to pray; today, suffering. The Mission of Jesus was to save souls by suffering. We are invited to share in the same mission, to take up our cross daily and follow him. Recently a wise friend of mine reminded me that my mission was to teach and to suffer. That caught me...
Sep 04, 2019•23 min
Yesterday, September 2, 2019, Our Lady is reported to have given this message at Medjugorje: Dear children, pray! Pray the Rosary every day—that wreath of flowers which, as a mother, directly connects me with your pains, sufferings, desires, and hopes. Apostles of my love, I am with you through the grace and the love of my Son, and I am asking for prayers of you. The world is in such need of your prayers for souls to be converted. With complete trust, open your hearts to my Son, and in them He w...
Sep 03, 2019•24 min
I want you to reach a deeper friendship and intimacy with God in this life and so for the last few days I have been explaining the nine stages of prayer and that when you reach the 5th stage of prayer, infused prayer or contemplation you will begin to experience heaven on earth. To grow in prayer we need to foster a greater desire for God since as John of the Cross writes the desire for God is the preparation for union with Him. However, we cannot grow in union with God unless we grow in love fo...
Sep 02, 2019•23 min
I want you to continue to respond to call of Mary to pray the Rosary every day. Through the Rosary the Holy Spirit and Mary will form Jesus within you. The Rosary is the School of Mary. The Rosary is also the greatest weapon to overcome evil and bring peace to our families and the world. Mary is the one who crushes the head of Satan and she will do so in our lives by the Rosary. At the same time I want to encourage you to deepen your friendship with God by spending more time with him in prayer; ...
Sep 01, 2019•24 min
Over the last few days I have been encouraging you to spend more time in friendship with Jesus by moving from stage one, vocal prayer, talking to God, to listening in Meditation so that you can reach stage 5, infused prayer or contemplation, which is the beginning of the experience of heaven on earth. The Rosary is a combination of vocal prayer and meditation, but to move to meditation it is helpful to understand what it is… Jordan Aumann, Spiritual Theology, p. 318 Meditation is a reasoned appl...
Aug 31, 2019•26 min
Facing temptations in prayer Prayer is friendship with God. Friendship takes time talking, listening and just being together. But it certainly takes one on one time and focused attention. Vocal prayers like the Our Father and Hail Mary, and personal prayers of petition in which we turn to Our Father for all we need are good. But if we stop there, it is not much of a friendship. We would not call it friendship if the only time we communicate was to ask for something. If the only time you call me ...
Aug 30, 2019•24 min
Prayer is friendship with God: it is talking, listening and just being with God. This corresponds to the three major expressions of prayer: Vocal prayer, mediation, and contemplation. The goal of this friendship with God we call prayer is Heaven. Heaven is a transforming union with God. The journey to heaven does not begin at death. The journey or pilgrimage to heaven is supposed to begin now. In fact, you are traveling either closer to heaven or closer to hell at each moment. Time is dynamic. T...
Aug 29, 2019•24 min
Why would anyone want to pray? I want to pray because I want to be happy. Happiness is to possess the good things that complete or fulfill our human nature. In general, God designed the Human Person to need certain good things to be satisfied. We need: physical goods, psychological goods, family and friendship, knowledge, meaningful work, beauty, and identity. If you had all these would you be perfectly satisfied? No! And that is the right answer because even though the things of the world are g...
Aug 28, 2019•24 min
We are all addicts. Addicts to the sins we have turned into habits that are buried so deep in our sub-conscience we do them without even thinking. There are seven roots of our addiction and they are known as the deadly sins: Pride, envy, anger, acedia, greed, gluttony and lust. Pride in the form of self-reliance, the disordered desire for perfection, or being a control freak, refusing to listen to anyone other than oneself; but Pride is also found in timidity, anxiety and fear. Envy is a sadness...
Aug 27, 2019•25 min
Mary set out and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. Now as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honored with a visit from the mother of my Lord? For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my ...
Aug 26, 2019•26 min
Thank you for joining us for our meditation on the Kingdom of Heaven
Aug 25, 2019•23 min
Today is the feast of the Apostle Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael. I walk by his house in Cana in the Holy Land every time I lead a pilgrimage there. Bartholomew was one of the few who said yes to a life of deep friendship with Jesus Christ. He lived this intimate friendship with Jesus and with the other Apostles for three years and then he went forth after the Resurrection to constantly invite others into friendship with Jesus. We make things too complicated and difficult. This life is mos...
Aug 24, 2019•23 min
One of the greatest weapons of the devil is discouragement. He wants to discourage us from actions that will lead to our own transformation, the transformation of those around us and the whole world. We need to resist him firmly, refuse to give into his lies and do what God is inspiring within us! 1) The devil wants to discourage us from daily meditation. He knows that if we persevere in daily meditation, we will, over time, go from good, to better, to great, and become a saint. If we persevere ...
Aug 23, 2019•21 min
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Queenship of Mary. Because Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, then she is the Queen of the Universe. In the early 700’s in Jerusalem, St. John Damascene sums up the entire Christian tradition when he writes: "When she became Mother of the Creator, she truly became Queen of every creature." Christ is our King not only because He is the Son of God but also because He is the Savior of the World. Instituting this Celebration of the Queenship of...
Aug 22, 2019•24 min
I hate limitations! I am not the most intelligent person but I have a strong will and I will work or push through anything to accomplish what I want! Well, I came face to face with my limitations last night and today. My body was destroyed from trying to reach a new summit hiking everyday since last Wednesday. Except for Mass I didn’t leave the house today. I’ve been vanquished by my limitations and I am angry, sad and depressed. I have limitations, I hate that I am finite. This is the very trap...
Aug 21, 2019•23 min
I am with my family, sadly not all at the same time but in waves, Sandy John Sara Grace, Xavier, Teresa and Nick. We get up, go to daily Mass, hike big all day, cook great meals, laugh, have good conversation and pray the Rosary – well, that is whoever hasn’t fallen asleep. This is wonderful vacation. But today I felt a little lost because I am off my normal spiritual routine of spending the first hour of each day in silent meditation with Jesus and Mary. I’ve had lots of time in silence on the ...
Aug 20, 2019•23 min
Is your addiction to routine holding you back from encountering others?
Aug 19, 2019•22 min
Join us for the Rosary and a meditation on this weekend's Gospel.
Aug 18, 2019•23 min
God created every person to share in his life – to be like God and live like God forever! God’s plan is to bring about a great exchange – he would take on our lowly humanity in order to give us a share in his divinity. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that? St. Peter writes in his 2nd letter that we will become “partakers in the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4). And this fact led St. Augustine and St. Thomas to say: God became man so that man could become god. How will we come to share in the life o...
Aug 17, 2019•24 min
The CCC suggests 4 reasons why we need Jesus 457 God became man in Jesus to save us by reconciling us with God. We have all sinned. Romans 6 tells us the consequences of sin is death. Death doesn’t just mean the end of our earthly life. Death as the consequence from unrepented sin means eternal separation from God, but also separation from one another and the complete loss of happiness… Imagine being locked in solitary confinement, completely alone – forever, with no hope that the pain would end...
Aug 16, 2019•24 min
The Assumption of Mary is not recorded in Scripture, but we know it is true because the Apostles were present, they are the witnesses to the Assumption of Mary, body and soul into heaven, and they hand down this fact. The Apostles were present at the home of Mary in Jerusalem when her earthly life came to an end, they carried her body and placed it in a tomb near Gethsemane, and the Apostles were witnesses to her bodily Assumption into heaven. St. Germanus of Constantinople in a homily given in ...
Aug 15, 2019•24 min
In the beginning of his letter to the Colossians, St. Paul makes a statement that I think doesn’t make sense except on the Catholic view of participation: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and my flesh I complete what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His body, that is, the Church” (Colossians 1:24). How could Christ’s sufferings be lacking? And if they were lacking, how could we make up for it? Think of it this way: Christ preached the Gospel, but if we don’t p...
Aug 14, 2019•24 min
