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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Miraculous Medal | everyday miracles | family prayer
Katherine Doyle describes four miracles she personally witnessed after receiving a Miraculous Medal during a time of crisis. I remember my grandma always wearing a Miraculous Medal. Hers was silver and small. She was deeply devoted to Mary, but unfortunately, I never asked her how this came to be. The question never occurred to me. Reflecting back on this, I see this missed opportunity as a testament of my youth. Her religiosity was profound, and I just assumed she was always like that. Grandma went to Mass every day and was an active member in her parish. My grandparents unfailingly recited their nightly Rosary after dinner. The light would flicker off her rosary and her Miraculous Medal as I would watch her pray with her eyes closed, so focused on God.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Justice is real, and justice will triumph, but justice unfolds in God’s time and according to God’s eternal plan. These are lessons – both comforting and challenging – from today’s readings. In the first reading, the prophet Nahum gives thanks for the downfall of Assyria and its capital Nineveh around 600 BC. Their empire, centered in what is now Iraq, had oppressed and violated surrounding nations for centuries; they had destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, with its ten tribes of Jacob, and nearly destroyed the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem, until God miraculously intervened. It is fitting, then, that the prophet Nahum sees Assyria’s destruction as an instance of God’s righteous judgment and an act of favor to His people. And yet, we know from history that the Assyrian conquerors would be replaced by the Babylonian conquerors, who would be replaced by the Persians, who would be replaced by the Greeks, who would be replaced by the Romans. And each of these powers would, to varying degrees, oppress or seek to destroy the Jewish nation and even the people of God. And so, the fall of Assyria was a true and powerful sign of God’s righteousness, but only a foreshadowing of the ultimate peace and justice that the people of God still wait for in hope.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith | Transfiguration of the Lord
If you've ever had, or heard someone describe, a "mountaintop experience," that expression finds its roots in Matthew 17:1-9, the Gospel passage proclaimed on the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. In this powerful moment, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain, where His divine glory is revealed before them. We refer to an uplifting or revelatory spiritual experience with God in this way because it is what Peter, James, and John experienced on Mt. Tabor when they saw Christ’s Divine glory radiating: His face shone like the sun, His clothes became dazzling white, and Moses and Elijah appeared beside Him.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Every family has an unofficial archive. It contains faded photographs, childhood nicknames, unfortunate haircuts, and stories that are never permitted to die. You may become a surgeon, a bishop, or the Secretary-General of the United Nations, but at Christmas dinner an aunt will still say, “This is the boy who swallowed a coin when he was six.” Or, “This is the one who got his head stuck between the railings, and the fire department had to come.” Families are excellent at keeping us humble. Sometimes they continue the treatment long after humility has been successfully achieved.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
“Abba Anthony taught that while a solitary person escapes the external wars of hearing, speaking, and seeing, the constant battle remains within the heart.” Put in different words, purity of heart is and must be the core goal of our spiritual life, our anchor for striving for holiness. The caution here is: we should not fool ourselves into believing that external purity habits do equate to a holy life. Experience teaches that religious performance can easily mask a prideful and spiteful heart. Our words and reactions are a reflection of what truly sits deep within our hearts.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Matthew tells us Jesus comes walking across the water during "the fourth watch of the night." The Romans divided the night into four three-hour shifts for soldiers on guard duty, and the fourth watch ran from roughly three to six in the morning, which any person will tell you is the worst possible hour to be awake. Because It's not dramatic midnight. It's not the hopeful dawn. It's the hour where your phone is off, your coffee is hours away, and your brain decides to replay every humiliating thing you've ever said and done since the third grade. At three in the morning, even a harmless coat hanging on a chair can look as though it has bad intentions.
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