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Chastity: Order in Our Courts Following Jesus to Calvary requires temperance, that gift of the Holy Spirit which sets love in order within us. The ordered soul loves to linger with Jesus. Yet we with shifting, bloodshot eyes struggle to keep watch with Him. Gerald May is right: ‘Addicts cannot meditate.’ So we cry out: ‘Come Holy Spirit, set love in order within us by uniting us with the One who has power to compose us. Make us whole as we fix our eyes on the One who suffers

God gave everything for us at Calvary. He poured out His life, which is the best definition of love I know. We have all (I hope) known someone who sacrificed for us. But he or she did not give everything. God did. He died for us. He died for us in order to gain us: He died to draw near to us, to be with us, to calm us with His Presence, to speak words we can hear, to nourish us with His body and blood. He ‘who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see’ (1

We are healed and we will be healed by faith in Jesus. So will our loved ones. To stop trusting Jesus for His full and perfect will for everyone we love (including ourselves) negates the power of what He won for us at Calvary. ‘By His wounds we are healed’ (IS. 53:5; 1P2:24). Period. Like every virtue, faith is both a gift of grace and an arduous goal. For persons coming out of disordered identities and desire, it is easy to trust Jesus when we experience ourselves as solid e

‘She who has been forgiven of much will love much’ (LK 7:47). Turning from our unchaste ways becomes beautiful when we turn toward Jesus. It’s not only family and friends we violated with our jagged divides; we pierced Him too. He retaliates by releasing a fountain of affection for us (Zech. 12:10-13:2) that cleanses and feeds us like the best mother and confirms us like the best father. St. Augustine said that the Church herself was born from Christ’s wounds– the blood and w

‘The bride belongs to the bridegroom.’ (Jn 3:29) We who welcome the Cross as the sign and seal of God’s unfailing love for us welcome Jesus as Lover. Calvary is the means by which He betroths Himself to us. His broken flesh is the means by which He incarnates Himself into our flesh—the whole of our humanity. Blood tore the veil of sin, water cleanses us for Him, His Spirit indwells us and makes us new. We are His, He is ours. St. Paul recognized this profoundly. He addressed

Woodcut, published ca. 1880. I just read in the New York Times that Dr. Robert Spitzer, the man who documented the transformation of 200 former homosexuals like me, now claims (for no apparent reason) that we must have been lying. Who knew? Not my wife and kids… Bowing to the irrational drive of gay activists who insist that no homosexual can change (in spite of pretty good evidence to the contrary), Spitzer capitulated. Gratefully, God helps those who aspire to live the trut

Jesus' crucifixion. Woodcut after a drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (German painter, 1794 - 1872) This is the fifth post of my Holy Week Meditations for 2012. Please click here for the archive list of posts as they become available. — Intimate Authority: Holy Week Meditations, 5 Weeping and lingering were the earmarks of Mary’s authority. These are the signs of holy intimacy; tears of gratitude spilt while abiding in His love, and tears of grief over the loss of love

Merciful Discipline 3: Broken, We Endure Shame In the Church, God has put Himself into hands that betray Him again and again. – Pope Benedict Do not hold against us the sins of the fathers; may Your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need. Help us, O God our Savior, for the glory of Your Name; deliver us, and forgive us our sins for Your Name’s sake. Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” (PS 79:8-10a) We repent on behalf of the abuse-broken chu

— Everything I Have is Yours 40 Days of Mercy Devotional – Lent 2012 – Day 15 At the moment of Your death on the cross, You opened an inexhaustible spring of Mercy for us, giving us Your dearest possession, the Blood and Water from Your heart. Such is the omnipotence of Your Mercy. From it, all grace flows to us.   (1747) For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him Crucified,…so that your faith may not rest on men’s wisdom but on God’s powe

— Merciful Eyes ‘To see the image of God in every sister—all love of neighbor must flow from this motive.’ (861) How we see others must be anchored in how God sees them. ‘To love a person means to see him as God intends him to be,’ in the words of Dostoevsky. Above all else, God wants us to walk in the dignity of bearing His image and likeness. That means all men and women represent Him in their humanity; such a high call distinguishes us from the rest of creation. Sin may ha

— Boldness and Mercy ‘If the Lord demands something of a soul, He gives it the means to carry it out; through grace, He makes it capable. At the Lord’s command, the soul can undertake things beyond its expectation if God’s power and strength, which makes the soul courageous and valiant, are manifest within it.’ (1090) ‘Your assignment on earth is to beg Mercy for the whole world.’ (570) Jesus gave St. Faustina a bold calling: to immerse souls in the flood of God’s Mercy at Ca

— Mercy Rising (on trembling legs…) ‘I know that the grain of wheat must be ground between millstones in order to become food. In the same way, I must be crushed in order to be useful to the Church and to souls.’ (641) Jesus is crushed to become for us the Meal of Mercy; death precedes life, first for Christ then for Christians. Only our death is not fatal. The Risen Lord invites us to die to our props and illusions; He grants us Mercy then resurrects what in us pleases Him.

— The Gaze from the Cross, Part 4  (Please also read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) ‘When I was dying on the cross, I was not thinking about Myself but about sinners, and I prayed for them to the Father.’ (324) Prayer for sinners to enter into God’s Mercy must become action: intercession primes our hearts with God’s intentions for them. What a privilege to steep loved ones in God’s merciful heart for them! Prayer then looses merciful words and actions toward each one. I love tha