x Close
World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
We Christians in the 21st century have had to endure over 400 years of the debates between Protestants and Catholics, in particular the debates over faith and good works. And, as is often the case in these types of ongoing confrontations, I think we have allowed ourselves to be forced into hardened positions where we buy into characterizations that we shouldn’t actually believe. In particular, when you listen to these Protestant and Catholic arguments over faith and good works, both sides seem to depict faith as a mostly internal, almost intellectual state, a mental adherence to a set of doctrines.
Share
Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
The prophecy today from Zechariah is a bold one, one that no person would have dared to predict on his own without divine inspiration. When Zechariah wrote, the people of Judah had just returned from Exile at the mercy of great Persia; they had re-built the Temple, and as we heard in last week’s readings, it was a meager replica of the original. Judged by appearances, they were a tiny, insignificant nation, surviving at the pleasure of far more dominant civilizations. And yet, here Zechariah is, prophesying that all peoples, including the mighty nations, will seek Jerusalem out and look to the Jews for guidance and wisdom, as the people who uniquely know the LORD. It is a stunning vision.
Share
Brief and contemporary inspiration focused on hope and family prayer will be delivered to your inbox! Articles include live video, written word, and links to resources that will lead you and your family deeper into faith.
These readings from Ezra recount how the Jews returned to Judah and built a new Temple after the Persians freed them from their Babylonian conquerors. The destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the exile of the king and much of the population was undoubtedly the greatest trauma God’s people had suffered up to that point. And yet, somehow, mysteriously, this experience of defeat and exile yielded a Jewish people of far greater faith and spiritual depth. Their writings and their practices of covenant faithfulness both reveal a richer understanding of God’s nature and their relationship to Him than they ever had attained in the glory days of David and Solomon.
Share
Learn more about our faith | Why pray? | rosary rally
If you were to ask a bunch of Christians what the oldest heresy faced by the Church is, I’d bet that most would guess Arianism, an early 4th-century heresy that said Jesus wasn’t really divine. In fact, the threat of Arianism led to the great councils and the Nicene Creed. But the first major heresy goes back centuries earlier, almost to the beginning of Christianity itself. That heresy was Gnosticism, which said -- among many things -- that Jesus wasn’t really human, but only appeared so. And, interestingly, if we meditate on today’s Gospel passage, we can see how Gnosticism itself is a kind of wrongheaded, misguided defense of Jesus from criticisms that Our Lord faced in His own lifetime. Is Jesus Too Human Today, we hear Jesus lamenting how His critics simply can’t accept that a true prophet, especially the Messiah, could eat and drink freely and socialize with sinners. This is all too ordinary and human! A figure from God should be more other-worldly, separated, and inaccessible. And the Gnostics, accepting these kinds of premises, said, “You’re right; the Son of God could not actually be so lowly. That’s why all this human stuff was just an act.”
Share
Learn more about our faith | Our Lady of Sorrows
How fitting it is that today’s Gospel follows directly after yesterday’s celebration of Our Lady of Sorrows. For in the passage we just heard, Jesus responds with tremendous compassion for a sorrowful mother, a widow who has lost her only son, a widow whom Christ recognizes as a pre-figuring of His own Mother at the Cross and at His tomb. And in his miracle at Nain of raising her son, Jesus, of course, also pre-figures His own Resurrection.
Share
Holy lives of inspiration | Love thy Neighbor
When Pope Francis, whose birth name was Jorge Bergoglio, did one of his first major media spots after his election, the interviewer asked him the question, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?”, and he answered, “I am a sinner.” While true, it was still a shocking opening response. It would have been as if Babe Ruth, near the end of his career, had been asked, “How would you describe yourself as a baseball player, Babe?” and he would have responded, “I’m a player who strikes out more than just about anyone else.” I mean, that was true, but it was also true that in certain seasons, Babe Ruth singlehandedly hit more home runs than almost all major league teams! Likewise, the Holy Father would have surpassed almost all of us in his prayerfulness and devotion and virtue. But he chose to lead with the truth that unites him to all of us: he is a sinner in need of God’s mercy, in need of the saving work of Jesus Christ.
Share
