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Yesterday we had thematized the virtue of fortitude, which is so important for following the Lord firmly and perseveringly. Today we will look at another of the four cardinal virtues: temperance.

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom 8:13).

The disorder that remained in humanity as a consequence of original sin, must return to the order disposed by God, through His grace and our cooperation. It is necessary to wisely restrain the rebellion of the senses and passions against the spirit.

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To advance in the spiritual life it is essential to obey the Holy Spirit. He is our inner guide and teacher. When we become familiar with Him and learn to listen and follow His voice better, our spiritual path can become lighter and more agile.

After the Holy Spirit has led us to the first conversion (I am referring to that crucial moment when we make a clear decision to follow Jesus and put nothing before Him, as opposed to an indecisive and indifferent attitude towards God), He will continue to carry out His work within us.

Just as the decision we make at our first conversion is the authentic response to God’s love, so are all the subsequent steps on the path of sanctification.

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We had concluded yesterday’s meditation with these words of the Lord: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).

To better understand the path of inner transformation that God works in us, let us first look back at the original state that humanity enjoyed in Paradise and see the ways our souls bore the consequences for our fall into sin.

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As we will be on a mission to different parts of America over the next few weeks, we will be leaving the usual framework of daily meditations for a few days. However, this should not be a disadvantage, as we will be dealing with topics that are important for the development of a healthy spiritual life. Even if we have heard the subject before, it is always helpful to repeat it, for as the saying goes, ‘repetition is the mother of wisdom’.

After this short series on the spiritual life, next week we will meditate on the readings from the Book of Revelation that the Church offers us before the end of the liturgical year.

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When we begin to discover the lives of the saints, we often come across extraordinary stories. Such is the case of Saints Chrysanthus and Darius, martyrs of the first centuries, whose memory is celebrated today in the ancient liturgical calendar. I shall confine myself here to summarising their story on the basis of the account written by Wilhelm Auer. If you would like to listen to a meditation on today’s reading, please click on the following link: https://en.elijamission.net/2021/07/25/

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In the last two meditations, we had looked at two different deficiencies of freedom: fear and human respects. In addition, we had talked a little about inferiority complexes. On our path of following Christ, we are called to overcome – with God’s help – all these limitations to our freedom, so that they do not become an obstacle on this path and do not prevent the freedom that faith gives us from shining forth in our Christian witness. Today we will look at three other forms of unfreedom, which have a certain similarity. Read More

I am doing this series of meditations on the “unfreedom” because, in my opinion, it is important that our Christian witness be permeated by that freedom which only the Lord can grant us: “if the Son sets you free, you will indeed be free…” (Jn 8:36). Even if we try to live in the Will of God – and this is what every person who has lived a true conversion desires – there may be certain weaknesses that prevent us from fulfilling His Will willingly, completely and immediately. Although not all of us may be affected by each of the weaknesses of freedom that we will discuss in the next meditations, it is important to take note of all of them. Perhaps in this way we can help others whose freedom is restricted by all kinds of fears and other shortcomings. To develop this theme, I take some guidelines from Dietrich von Hildebrand’s book “Our Transformation in Christ”, especially from the chapter called “True Freedom”. Read More

If you are familiar with my daily meditations, you will notice that I try to offer a help to deepen the way of following Christ, based on Sacred Scripture and the authentic teaching of the Church. Occasionally, I interrupt the usual rhythm of the biblical meditations to deal with a theme that I consider important in the form of a “series”. In this way, certain topics related to the spiritual life can be dealt with in greater depth.

On this occasion, I will deal with a topic that – as far as I know – is not often dealt with in the context of the spiritual way. It is the so-called “unfreedom”, which prevents our faith from expressing itself in all its beauty and consequently also obscures our witness of life, which should be an invitation for others to find the way to God. Read More

In today’s meditation I would like to speak again about the Holy Rosary, because today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and the whole month of October is usually considered to be the “Month of the Rosary”.

The Holy Rosary, also known as the ‘Psalter of the Virgin Mary’, is one of the best-known and most popular prayers in the Catholic Church. In various apparitions, Our Lady insists that we pray it, and there are extraordinary testimonies of its efficacy. Read More

Whoever has been engaged in the prayer of the heart for a long time and practices it regularly, will experience the joy that this prayer really brings to the soul. It becomes easy for us to withdraw into that “inner cell” which has been formed through prayer, precisely at those times when noise gets in the way and we are most exposed to the danger of distraction. But even if our surroundings are not so noisy, we can gladly withdraw to this “inner cell” to be alone with the Lord. With the passing of time, it becomes natural to us. Of course, to get there, we will have to follow the impulses of grace and cultivate interior prayer. Thus, it becomes a good spiritual habit to withdraw to prayer, finding, through it, our home in the Lord. Read More