Showing all posts in Reflexion

God’s love finds those who do not close their hearts to Him. Not everyone has turned their back on Him; not everyone lives indifferently as their earthly life passes by; not everyone remains mired in lethargy or keeps their ears closed to God’s call. There are also those who are faithful to Him!

After Noah, God found Abraham, the father of believers (cf. Rom 4:1-3), and said to him: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Gen 12:1-3).

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“Adam, where are you?” (Cf. Gen 3:9).

The Heart of God seeks man who, having fallen under the seduction of the powers of darkness, has turned his back on Him. As Jesus shows us in the parable of the prodigal son, God is always waiting—awaiting our return.

Man wanders through this world without knowing where he comes from or where he is going. He no longer knows God as He truly is. With each new derailment, the memory of that trusting relationship with God—the memory of his true home, Paradise—fades away.

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The first step on our Advent journey is to deeply assimilate the concept of God’s loving Providence, for it allows us to understand that it was God’s love that called us into existence and constantly blesses us with His presence. We are not a random product or a whim of nature, which comes and goes until it dissolves into nothingness. No! God created us to live in communion with Him and to share in His fullness (cf. Eph 1:4–6). The Lord tells us:

“I have called you by name, you are mine” (Is 43:1). Read More

Today, we begin the season of Advent to prepare for the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord. This year, I would like to share a series of updated meditations that I wrote during Advent 2020 as a kind of “spiritual retreat” for this liturgical season.

At that time, the Coronavirus crisis had erupted. It was said that all of humanity was in danger and that everyone had to be vaccinated multiple times to avoid catastrophe. The pharmaceutical industry, politics, the media, and even the Church were all rowing in the same direction. The latter insisted that vaccination was an act of charity toward one’s neighbor. Read More

A great tribulation befell the faithful of England and Wales when King Henry VIII broke away from the authority of Rome in 1531 and founded the so called “Church of England.” The situation worsened under the reign of Elizabeth I. Catholics were treated and persecuted as enemies of the state. With no Catholic bishops left, it was no longer possible to ordain Catholic priests. The Catholic Church, which had held a prominent position in England, seemed on the verge of extinction. However, God did not allow this to happen.

William Allen, a priest who had fled England, managed to found a seminary in Douai, France, to train priests who would be ordained and sent as missionaries to England. Their vocations had to be strong, as persecution and death awaited them in their homeland. William Allen himself wrote several books defending the true faith.

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Before we delve into the story of today’s saint, we should first ask: what is iconoclasm?

Following the Council of Chalcedon, a controversy arose in the Eastern Church over whether it was permissible to depict Christ in icons. Influenced by the Islamic doctrine of God’s inaccessibility, those who opposed images argued that Christ could not be represented because He was true God, and they considered that icons placed too much emphasis on His humanity. Conversely, defenders of images claimed that the Spirit of God permeated visible representations of the invisible God. In 726, Emperor Leo III banned images and ordered their destruction in all churches and monasteries.

The ‘iconoclasts’, or detractors of images, based their argument on the Old Testament prohibition against making representations of God. This dispute, which raged fiercely for nearly a century, ended when the Church bindingly defined that icons of Christ and the saints could be venerated.

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As we approach the end of the liturgical year, I would like to tell you about two saints who are likely unfamiliar to us today, but whose story was so popular in the Middle Ages that it was said some knew it better than the Holy Scriptures.

They are the hermit Saint Barlaam and the Indian prince Josaphat. Saint John Damascene, a Church Father born around 650, is considered the author of their story.

Ancient Indian chronicles recount that some hermits from the desert of Thebaid traveled to the land of the Hindus, where they converted people of all castes to Christianity. Many of them imitated the example of the apostles of Egypt and devoted themselves to contemplation in solitude. Their numbers were considerable, so the “new religion” attracted the attention of kings. Then Abener, a powerful king of India whose kingdom bordered Persia, rose up and began to persecute Christians. He worshiped the god Brahma and indulged in every sensual pleasure. But no matter how rich the treasure of his palace was, and no matter how much his clothes were adorned with gold and precious stones, his soul was poor in wisdom.

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Today we celebrate the memorial of St Catherine of Alexandria, who lived between the 3rd and 4th century. Catherine, being the only daughter of a pagan king named Costus, had received a good education. She had become a Christian.

When she heard that Emperor Maxentius had ordered all the people to come to Alexandria to offer sacrifice to the gods, Catherine hurried to the place where the Christians were, fearful of the death that awaited them if they refused to sacrifice.

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We had reflected on the virtue of fortitude in context with the readings from the book of Maccabees; those courageous men and women of the People of Israel. I also pointed out that we need this virtue for our Christian witness in the world, which, in an extreme case, can go as far as martyrdom. We can train ourselves in the virtue of fortitude, and we should not be discouraged if we are naturally fearful. The story of the novice Blanche de la Force (narrated in Gertud von Le Fort’s novel “The Last One at the Scaffold”) can encourage these fearful souls, showing them that they too can be capable of heroic deeds.

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Fortitude – which is considered as one of the four cardinal virtues – is part of the basic equipment of a soldier. If he does not become courageous, he cannot be counted on in the toughest battles, for fear would take hold of him, so that the situation would become dangerous for all his comrades.

It is easy to make this observation when we think of physical warfare. But physical warfare is a reflection of the spiritual combat in which we find ourselves. In chapter 6 of the letter to the Ephesians, Paul makes us understand that our struggle is against “the principalities, the powers, the rulers of this dark world and the spirits of evil that are in the air” (v. 12).

The war in which we find ourselves must be fought on many levels, and the Lord does not exempt us from doing our part. Each in his own way, and according to the circumstances in which he finds himself, needs the virtue of fortitude and must learn to overcome all cowardice and to restrain his fearfulness, so that it does not prevent him from doing what the Lord wants of him.

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