First published June 5th, 2013… with updates today.
IF I may recall briefly here a powerful experience about ten years ago when I felt driven to go to the church to pray before the Blessed Sacrament…
TIME OF GRACE
A Thread of Mercy
IF the world is Hanging by a Thread, it is the strong thread of Divine Mercy—such is the love of God for this poor humanity.
I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart. I use punishment when they themselves force Me to do so; My hand is reluctant to take hold of the sword of justice. Before the Day of Justice I am sending the Day of Mercy. —Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 1588
In those tender words, we hear the interweaving of God’s mercy with His justice. It is never one without the other. For justice is God’s love expressed in a divine order that holds the cosmos together by laws—whether they are laws of nature, or laws of “the heart”. So whether one sows seed into the ground, love into the heart, or sin into the soul, one will always reap what he sows. That is a perennial truth that transcends all religions and times… and is being played out dramatically on 24 hour cable news.Continue reading
Hanging By a Thread
THE world seems to be hanging by a thread. The threat of nuclear war, rampant moral degradation, division within the Church, the attack on the family, and the assault on human sexuality has frayed the world’s peace and stability to a dangerous point. People are coming apart. Relationships are unraveling. Families are fracturing. Nations are dividing…. That is the big picture—and one that Heaven seems to agree with:Continue reading
The New Gideon
MEMORIAL OF THE QUEENSHIP OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
Mark is coming to Philadelphia in September, 2017. Details at the end of this writing… In today’s first Mass reading on this memorial of the Queenship of Mary, we read about the call of Gideon. Our Lady is the New Gideon of our times…
DAWN expels the night. Spring follows the Winter. Resurrection proceeds from the tomb. These are allegories for the Storm that has come to the Church and the world. For all will appear as though lost; the Church will seem utterly defeated; evil will exhaust itself in the darkness of sin. But it is precisely in this night that Our Lady, as the “Star of the New Evangelization”, is presently leading us toward the dawn when the Sun of Justice will rise upon a new Era. She is preparing us for the Flame of Love, the coming light of her Son…
Finishing the Course
THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for May 30th, 2017
Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Liturgical texts here
HERE was a man who hated Jesus Christ… until he encountered Him. Meeting Pure Love will do that to you. St. Paul went from taking the lives of Christians, to suddenly offering his life as one of them. In stark contrast to today’s “martyrs of Allah”, who cowardly hide their faces and strap bombs on themselves to kill innocent folks, St. Paul revealed true martyrdom: to give oneself for the other. He did not hide either himself or the Gospel, in imitation of his Savior.Continue reading
The Refuge Within
THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for May 2nd, 2017
Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
Memorial of St. Athanasius
Liturgical texts here
THERE is a scene in one of Michael D. O’Brien’s novels that I have never forgotten—when a priest is being tortured for his faithfulness. [1]Eclipse of the Sun, Ignatius Press In that moment, the clergyman seems to descend to a place where his captors cannot reach, a place deep within his heart where God resides. His heart was a refuge precisely because, there too, was God.
| 1. | ↑ | Eclipse of the Sun, Ignatius Press |
Christmas is Never Over
CHRISTMAS is over? You’d think so by the world’s standards. The “top forty” has replaced Christmas music; sales signs have replaced ornaments; lights have been dimmed and Christmas trees kicked to the curb. But for us as Catholic Christians, we are still in the midst of a contemplative gaze at the Word who has become flesh—God become man. Or at least, it should be so. We still await the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, to those Magi who travel from afar to see the Messiah, the one who is to “shepherd” God’s people. This “epiphany” (commemorated this Sunday) is, in fact, the pinnacle of Christmas, because it reveals that Jesus is no longer “just” for the Jews, but for every man, woman and child who wanders in darkness.
Jesus
THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for Saturday, December 31st, 2016
The Seventh Day of the Nativity of Our Lord and
Vigil of the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
Mother of God
Liturgical texts here
Embracing Hope, by Léa Mallett
THERE is one word on my heart on this eve of the Solemnity of the Mother of God:
Jesus.
This is the “now word” on the threshold of 2017, the “now word” I hear Our Lady prophesying over the nations and the Church, over families and souls:
JESUS.
On Medjugorje
This week, I have been reflecting on the past three decades since Our Lady reportedly began appearing in Medjugorje. I have been pondering the incredible persecution and danger that the seers endured, never knowing from day to day if the Communists would dispatch them as the Yugoslavian government was known to do with “resistors” (since the six seers would not, under threat, say that the apparitions were false). I am thinking of the countless apostolates that I have encountered in my travels, men and women who found their conversion and calling on that mountainside… most especially the priests I have met whom Our Lady called on pilgrimage there. I am thinking too that, not too long from now, the entire world will be drawn “into” Medjugorje as the so-called “secrets” that the seers have faithfully kept are revealed (they have not even discussed them with each other, save for the one that is common to them all—a permanent “miracle” that will be left behind on Apparition Hill.)
I am thinking too of those who have resisted the countless graces and fruits of this place that often read like the Acts of the Apostles on steroids. It is not my place to declare Medjugorje true or false—something the Vatican continues to discern. But neither do I ignore this phenomenon, invoking that common objection that “It’s private revelation, so I don’t have to believe it”—as if what God has to say outside the Catechism or Bible is unimportant. What God has spoken through Jesus in Public Revelation is necessary for salvation; but what God has to say to us through prophetic revelation is necessary at times for our ongoing sanctification. And thus, I wish to blow the trumpet—at the risk of being called all the usual names of my detractors—at what seems utterly obvious: that Mary, Mother of Jesus, has been coming to this place for over thirty years in order to prepare us for Her Triumph—whose climax we seem to be rapidly approaching. And so, since I have so many new readers of late, I wish to republish the following with this caveat: though I have written relatively little about Medjugorje over the years, nothing gives me more joy… why is that?
More on the Flame of Love
ACCORDING to Our Lady, there is a “blessing” coming upon the Church, the “Flame of Love” of her Immaculate Heart, according to the approved revelations of Elizabeth Kindelmann (read The Convergence and the Blessing). I want to continue to unfold in the days ahead the significance of this grace in Scripture, prophetic revelations, and the teaching of the Magisterium.