"So that People Might Seek God..."

On October 1, the Church celebrates the feast day of one of my favorite saints, St. Therese of Lisieux. A little over a year ago, I wrote a reflection on our original blog space about St. Therese as one of my personal saint stalkers. In the spirit of celebrating her feast day tomorrow, I thought it might be a good time to revisit and update the post. The original post is reproduced in its entirety below. -- Have you ever had a saint stalker? A member of the recognized communion of saints who just keeps popping up in your life? You probably have -- you just might not have noticed it. I think I’ve had a few saint stalkers in my day, but the one who is currently trying to get my attention and help save my soul is none other than St. Therese of Lisieux. She’s been hard at work with me for nearly 4 years now. Yes, you read that correctly: Four. Long. Years. ( Edit: Since this was written in 2016, it's been 5 years now. ) When did I first realize that St. Therese was saint stalkin...

The Gospel message we hear in Matthew 18: 21-35 can make me feel uneasy at times. In this passage, we hear of a servant who begs his master for forgiveness for a huge debt and receives it; but when a fellow servant asks forgiveness of a much smaller debt, he refuses mercy and compassion and demands repayment immediately. When the master catches wind of this, he seizes the servant he forgave and has him tortured until he can repay his massive debt, thereby pretty much ruining his life. Ouch . Reality check! How often have I obsessed over small things and refused others forgiveness for something that's admittedly petty? Forgiveness does as much, if not more, for us as it does for the one who is forgiven. But it's not the easiest thing to do, especially when offenses are large and are tied to deep emotions. The Book of Sirach tells us that anger and wrath are hateful things -- things that sinners cling to. And while 'rising above' is definitely not easy, the sim...

As we pondered in what direction to take our new home for spiritual growth reflections, this account from Acts of the Apostles of St. Paul preaching to the Athenians came to mind. “You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything. He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God , even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our...