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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Holy lives of inspiration | Love thy Neighbor
There is a notion in chemistry called activation energy. The idea being that, even for reactions that are going to give off a lot of energy, you have to supply a little energy up front to get them going. Think about lighting a match in order to start a big campfire. Tons of energy given off, but without the match, the kindling and the wood just sit there. An analogous idea can be found in the very colloquial business saying, “It takes money to make money.” Imagine if you had been able to invest $1000 in Nike or Apple or Tesla when the company first went public.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Love thy Neighbor
The book of Judges, from where we have the first reading today, covers a turbulent period in Israel’s history, after the death of Joshua and before the rise of kings. Without a central ruler, the tribes often drifted into moral and spiritual chaos.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
There’s an old Irish saying, which goes; “The most beautiful road is the one that leads you home.” We are on a journey, with a destination in mind. But if we’re honest, most of us pack for life as if this world were the final destination, extra baggage, emergency snacks, a few “just in case” projects. We live as if we are settling in for good, when in reality, we are all just passing through the departure lounge. And speaking of travel, let me share with you a story my friend forwarded to me. There is this couple from Minnesota, they were experiencing a freezing and severe winter. And so they decided, well, why don't we go down to Florida to experience some good weather? And they said, well, why don't we see if we can stay at the same hotel where they honeymooned 20 years earlier? So they made the arrangements. With the last-minute bookings, the only little hiccup was that they couldn't get on the same flight. And so they agreed that the husband will fly down on Thursday; the wife was coming on Friday. And the husband arrives safely at Florida.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Every generation of young people have the saints for whom they feel a particular devotion. Teenagers and children today clearly love Blessed Carlo Acutis, who will be canonized on September 7. It makes sense; he’s one of them, a teenager himself, and someone who effortlessly used the tools of our digital world. Many Catholics around my age, we Gen X Catholics, feel a special connection with today’s saint, Maximilian Kolbe. Maybe it’s because ours was really the last generation to grow up in the shadow of World War II -- with a real consciousness of it as a battle for humanity’s soul -- since many of us had grandparents who had fought in Europe or Japan.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
If you’ve ever been stuck in the slowest line at the grocery store, you know a little of what Moses felt. Forty years of leading Israel through the wilderness was like being trapped behind a customer with 20 coupons, a cart full of melons, and a personal chat with the cashier. Just when you think you’re finally getting out, the lane closes. Moses led the people for forty years, through wilderness, disasters, rebellions, and at the end, God shows him the Promised Land from a mountaintop and God says, “Beautiful, isn’t it? But “You will not enter it. Thank you very much, Now Joshua will take it from here.”
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
Where do we find peace in our lives—and where do our families find it? If you’ve ever wrestled with that question individually or as a family, today’s saint, Jane Frances de Chantal offers us great hope. Most of us think of the saints as superhuman, but in fact they are real people, as regular as you and me…what brought them to sainthood--to heroic virtue and sanctity of life was how they handled the ups and downs of life by turning to God.
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