«No tengas miedo. No os conforméis con la mediocridad. Remad mar adentro y echad vuestras redes para pescar.
Te lo ruego: nunca, nunca renuncies a la esperanza, nunca dudes, nunca te canses y nunca te desanimes. No tengáis miedo».
- San Juan Pablo II
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified
who has spoken through the prophets.
“Live simply. Don’t overthink things. Pray to God, and the Lord will arrange everything. Don’t torment yourself with worries. Where there is simplicity, there are a hundred angels; where there is cleverness, there are none.”
St. Ambrose of Optina
Friends, I traveled today to the Planned Parenthood in Rochester to join a group of seminarians and lay people in praying for an end to abortion. Over the years, it has been edifying to join in prayer with 40 Days for Life and to see the progress being made to uphold the dignity of every human life. As I mentioned to our group today, we pray in our time, but the answers come in God's time. Please join me in continually petitioning the Lord to help us end the grave evil of abortion.
From everyone who has been given much, much will be required;
The greater the privilege, instruction, opportunity, and spiritual light received, the greater the responsibility to live faithfully before God.
How do you recognize a false prophet?
Very simple. 👀
He makes the message all about himself.
He positions himself at the center of attention.
He gets what he wants.
He demands loyalty to himself.
He seeks power, influence, wealth, or control.
He cannot tolerate his followers questioning him.
And eventually, everything points back to him rather than to God.
A true messenger points people away from himself and toward God.
Jesus said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Matthew 7:20
Don’t just listen to what a person claims about himself. Look at the fruit, the character, the message, and where that message ultimately leads people.
Good night 💤
"Fight all error, but do it with good humor, patience, kindness, and love. Harshness will damage your own soul and spoil the best cause." - St. John Cantius
“Prayer is talking with God… it should govern the whole of our life, so that in our every action and at every moment we should continue in remembrance of God.”
- St. Basil the Great
Friends, as Catholics, we have received an invitation from God the Father to come to the wedding banquet of his Son—to come to Mass and to share in the divine life.
And yet we know, through so many studies on church attendance, that countless Catholics say no to this invitation. This is the central tragedy of the spiritual life: receiving the invitation of the king and saying no.
Say yes this weekend. Go to Mass!
Today I stepped inside a 600-year-old Catholic chapel. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Built around 1420 in a small French village near Lyon, the chapel was already standing when St. Joan of Arc was fighting to save France.
For centuries, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered within its walls. Then came the French Revolution, abandonment, and ruin.
In the 1920s, a wealthy American woman devoted to St. Joan purchased the chapel, had it dismantled stone by stone, shipped across the Atlantic, and rebuilt on her Long Island estate.
She also acquired a 13th-century Gothic altar and a stone kissed by St. Joan herself after praying to the Blessed Virgin before battle. That stone now rests behind the altar.
Then, in 1962, disaster struck. A fire ravaged the adjoining French château.
The medieval chapel survived.
It was eventually dismantled AGAIN, loaded onto trucks, and painstakingly reconstructed on the campus of Marquette University, where it stands today.
Six centuries. The Hundred Years' War. The Protestant Reformation. The French Revolution. Two world wars. An ocean crossing. A devastating fire. Two relocations.
And today, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is STILL offered within these ancient walls.
Kings have come and gone. Empires have fallen. The Church remains.
St. Joan of Arc, ora pro nobis. ⚜️