Scraps From A Spiritual Diary

How does one pray to the Holy Spirit? That's a tough question. It is easy to pray to God, the Father since the Lord Himself taught us how to pray to Him. It is easy to pray to the Lord Himself. By virtue of the Incarnation he took on our humanity, and made it easy for us to have in our minds through... Sign in to see full entry.

A propos this blog, I received a dispatch from Zenit regarding an interview with a psychologist about forgiveness. Please read this article posted at A Glitch In Time,. In last Sunday's homily on the theme of forgiveness, I pointed out three steps in forgiving: 1. Stop hating the offending person 2.... Sign in to see full entry.

Col. 3:1-11 is the first part of Paul's theological introduction to the practical guidelines section of his letter to the Colossians (3:18-4:9). The second part is in 3:12-17. That these sections dwell on the life of the baptized between the time of Christ's glorification and his coming again in... Sign in to see full entry.

In November of 2004, the Order of St. Augustine brought the remains of St. Augustine from its resting place in Pavia, Italy to the Vatican. For that occasion, John Paul II composed a prayer to St. Augustine which he recited before the saint's relics. Here is my commentary on the prayer: The... Sign in to see full entry.

"Love" In Deuteronomy The verb for love appears in 21 verses. Of these instances, Yahweh is the subject of the verb in 6 instances: Deut. 4:37;7:8.13;10:15;23:5;33:3. Except for 7:13, all the other instances refer to the love that Yahweh showed to the "fathers", the ancestors of Moses' addressess in... Sign in to see full entry.

Matthew 13: 44-52 may at first appear unrelated. vv. 44-50 continues the string of parables about the Kingdom that Jesus tells his hearers beginning in verse 1. Vv. 51-52 is a concluding remark about the parabolic lessons just heard. In this remark, Jesus refers to a "scribe instructed in the... Sign in to see full entry.

"Lectio Divina" is the particular way by which Catholics read the Scriptures. It is a reading of the Scriptures that seeks to encounter God through the sacramentality of the Word. As such, it is not mere understanding, it is "knowing" the Word of God in the spirit of prayer. It is in this way that... Sign in to see full entry.

Pope Benedict XVI closed the national eucharistic congress of Italy at Bari. The theme of the congress was "We Cannot Live Without Sunday" which he explains in his homily thus: The theme chosen, "We Cannot Live without Sunday," takes us back to the year 304, when Emperor Diocletian prohibited... Sign in to see full entry.

Tomorrow, we are celebrating the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. It is quite appropriate too that at the end of the season of Easter, we glorify and thank God for what he has done for us: He has sent us His Son, so that believing in him, we may know God as Father and live with them in the fellowship... Sign in to see full entry.

John 15:9-17 is the second movement in the discourse that one finds in chapter 15. John 15:1-8 explains in a graphic way the vital relationship that exists between Jesus and his disciples. In this section, Jesus also describes that relationship as a love relationship. But the kind of love that is... Sign in to see full entry.