“Probes: Deep Sea Diving into St. John’s Gospel” is a beautiful union of Scripture Study and the prayer experience of Lectio Divina. I’ve never seen anything quite like it (and I hope I see more). What the reader will find is that diving deeper is actually climbing higher. Under Dr. Kreeft’s guidance, we learn to ask penetrating questions of Sacred Scripture, but more importantly, we learn to listen to the Word for the answers. Designed for community study or individual reflection, this is the “John” book I have been waiting for! Thank you once again Dr. Kreeft!
This is no ordinary book. It is a set of probing questions (1,450 in fact) designed to help individuals or groups, especially groups, to dive deeply into Saint John’s Gospel. No answers are provided, but the questions are phrased in such a way as to set a person in a reliable direction for finding the answers.
The questions correspond to the verses of the Gospel and require active and personal interaction. Some of the questions are easy, some difficult, and they are marked accordingly. Some questions include background information or hints that help the reader along. Some were written with a fair bit of humor. Any person or group using these questions to explore John will find themselves entertained as well as informed and inspired.
Simply one of the finest works ever compiled on the mystery of suffering. Fr. Robert Spitzer’s “The Light Shines On In The Darkness: Transforming Suffering through Faith (Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence)” could be considered a “catechism of suffering,” but not one rooted in misery, but rather anchored in the experience of God’s great mercy and redemptive sacrifice. This is a book of hope and one that should be experienced by all Christians, and in particular, those who minister in any way, shape, or form in the New Evangelization. Why would a loving God allow suffering? Is there any good that can be brought forth from our trials? So much more is addressed in this opus. I could not put this book down. Pick it up, you won’t regret it!
“Suffering has the power to break or elevate the human spirit. Lived in the spirit of the Gospel and borne for the sake of others, it’s the most redemptive, transfiguring force in creation. Fr. Spitzer has written a magisterial work on the meaning of suffering, a work remarkable both for its depth and beauty.” — Most Rev. Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Philadelphia
“In this trenchant and searching book, Fr. Spitzer responds to the most powerful objection to the proposition that God exists, namely, the problem of suffering. And he dares to do what very few are willing to do today: to articulate how evil and pain are ingredients in the providential design of a loving God.”
—Bishop Robert Barron, Host, Catholicism film series
This is a special edition of the reflection offered by Fr. Timothy Gallagher on the “Contemplation to Attain the love of God” by St. Ignatius of Loyola as found in the “Spiritual Exercises.” What we original provided to you as two separate episodes, we now combine into a single extended episode without interruption. We hope this will enhance your experience of this Ignatian exercise.
CONTEMPLATION TO ATTAIN THE LOVE OF GOD
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, [1914], at sacred-texts.com
Note. First, it is well to remark two things: the first is that love ought to be put more in deeds than in words.
The second, love consists in the interchange between the two parties; that is to say in the lover’s giving and communicating to the beloved what he has or out of what he has or can; and so contrary, the beloved to the lover. So that if the one has the knowledge, he gives to the one who has it not. The same of honors, of riches; and so the one to the other.
CONTEMPLATION TO GAIN LOVE
Prayer. The usual Prayer.
First Prelude. The first Prelude is a composition, which is here to see how I am standing before God our Lord, and of the Angels and of the Saints interceding for me.
Second Prelude. The second, to ask for what I want. It will be here to ask for interior knowledge of so great good received, in order that being entirely grateful, I may be able in all to love and serve His Divine Majesty.
First Point. The First Point is, to bring to memory the benefits received, of Creation, Redemption and particular gifts, pondering with much feeling how much God our Lord has done for me, and how much He has given me of what He has, and then the same Lord desires to give me Himself as much as He can, according to His Divine ordination.
And with this to reflect on myself, considering with much reason and justice, what I ought on my side to offer and give to His Divine Majesty, that is to say, everything that is mine, and myself with it, as one who makes an offering with much feeling:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my intellect, and all my will — all that I have and possess. Thou gavest it to me: to Thee, Lord, I return it! All is Thine, dispose of it according to all Thy will. Give me Thy love and grace, for this is enough for me.
Second Point. The second, to look how God dwells in creatures, in the elements, giving them being, in the plants vegetating, in the animals feeling in them, in men giving them to understand: and so in me, giving me being, animating me, giving me sensation and making me to understand; likewise making a temple of me, being created to the likeness and image of His Divine Majesty; reflecting as much on myself in the way which is said in the first Point, or in another which I feel to be better. In the same manner, will be done on each Point which follows.
Third Point. The third, to consider how God works and labors for me in all things created on the face of the earth — that is, behaves like one who labors — as in the heavens, elements, plants, fruits, cattle, etc., giving them being, preserving them, giving them vegetation and sensation, etc.
Then to reflect on me.
Fourth Point. The fourth, to look how all the good things and gifts descend from above, as my poor power from the supreme and infinite power from above; and so justice, goodness, pity, mercy, etc.; as from the sun descend the rays, from the fountain the waters, etc.
Then to finish reflecting on myself, as has been said.
I will end with a Colloquy and an OUR FATHER.
Be sure to check out Fr. Timothy Gallaghers latest book
You can find this book here
Father Timothy M. Gallagher, O.M.V., was ordained in 1979 as a member of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, a religious community dedicated to retreats and spiritual formation according to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Fr. Gallagher is featured on the EWTN series “Living the Discerning Life: The Spiritual Teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola”. For more information on how to obtain copies of Fr. Gallaghers’s various books and audio which are available for purchase, please visit his website: frtimothygallagher.org
In this compelling conversation with Deacon James Keating, a spiritual master of the highest order, we discuss those things that block us from having a closer relationship with God. We also discuss the importance of making time for Lectio Divina, living in the liturgy of the Church, and the danger of letting prayer become too complex.
Abiding in Christ: Staying with God in a Busy World is a wonderful how-to-pray resource. This book helps readers to find a quiet space wherein they can be present to God and offers suggestions of how they can be more open to God’s movement within them. We highly recommend this book to those souls seeking a deeper relationship with God.
Here are excerpts from our conversation in the podcast –
Sin, to some extent, possesses us, usually at the level of pleasure. Even if you think about the sin of anger, it always seems like it’s mayhem, but it’s actually pleasurable. People get a rush out of being angry. They get a rush out of being greedy. There’s a pleasure in sloth, in daydreaming, in fantasizing, in not doing the duty or the work we’re supposed to do right in front of us. There’s a pleasure in sloth.
And so that pleasure is the glue, the adhesive that keeps us in love with our sins. And that’s what God is alwaying fighting. He’s trying to displace that false love that we have set up by the way of pleasure. God knows that pleasure is not the deepest reality of existence. And so he’s not going to play the game back and like trump the pleasure of sin. He is going to attract us away from the pleasure of sin, by the beauty of truth.
As Joseph Ratizinger used to say, “The face of God, is the beauty of God’s face.” What’s that mean? That means that the truth, the radiance of truth will eventually win us over even against the strong undertow of sin’s pleasure. If we give him a chance, spend time with him, open our hearts to be affected by him, then over time, this beauty of his own face, the truth of who God is will move us away from the immediacy, the gratification of the pleasure that’s hiding within all of our sins. And that’s what salvation is. Salvation is finally surrendering to truth and its beauty over and against the fleeting pleasure of self-involvement
also
The liturgy is your participation in being loved and loving back. Catechesisis not learning in a classroom style. It’s learning how to pray. If we don’t learn how to pray, we won’t even be interested in the catechism. Why would you be interested in the catechism if you don’t know the person whose voluminous beauty fills the catechism? Why would you want to open that book?
The Catechism at its heart is learning how to be with Him, to receive Him. And then your intellect is a flame to want to know Him. We do it backwards. We’ve always done it backwards. I don’t know for how long, but since my birth, we’ve done it backwards. Reducing the mystery to academics. And that’s inherently boring because to study anybody you don’t know, to study anyone that you have no motivation to learn about, is boredom. So we have to let them be burned by the fire first. This is why to some extent, parishes have to be remodeled. Maybe God is doing this by making our parishes so much smaller.
People are leaving. They’re not saying this. They’re leaving because they’re bored. They’re leaving because they haven’t encountered. They’re leaving because they don’t know God. And they’re looking for God, but maybe we have to make our parishes more like retreat centers than some type of bureaucratic paperwork center where you go through and get certified to receive this sacrament or that sacrament. It has to be more of a retreat encounter so that people will want to know God because they’ve met to God.
Gary Jansen is one of my favorite authors; I love our conversations. He has a spiritual tenderness that appreciates the practical need to help the everyman find a way to deepen his relationship with God. “MicroShifts: Transforming Your Life One Step at a Time” is a beautiful response to that need! In its pages, Gary offers an effective way to navigate the travails of the spiritual journey. We highly recommend this and all of Gary’s books.
Is it really possible to change my life—in ways that will last?
Author Gary Jansen knows how difficult it can be to create significant, sustainable change in our lives. Sometimes we feel too overwhelmed to even start, and in other cases this self-work seems like one more burden. In his new book he offers an answer that he calls “microshifting”—small, incremental adjustments that gradually reshape our deeply rooted patterns.
With a blend of masterful storytelling and dozens of practical tips, MicroShifts suggests simple, small changes across many aspects of our lives—everything from how we greet others to how we try to talk to God—to generate big results physically, mentally, and spiritually. If you are looking for steps to improve your life that are achievable, sustainable, and potentially life-changing, MicroShifts is a powerful place to begin.
1 In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,a with the train of his garment filling the temple.
2 Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they hovered.b
3 One cried out to the other:
“Holy, holy, holy* is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
4 At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.
5 Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
Msgr. John A. Esseff is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton. Msgr. Esseff served as a retreat director and confessor to St. Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the missionaries of charity around the world. Msgr. Esseff encountered St. Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical missions, a Catholic organization established by Pope St. John Paul II to bring the Good News to the world especially to the poor. Msgr. Esseff assisted the founders of the Institute for Priestly Formation and continues to serve as a spiritual director for the Institute. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters, seminarians, and other religious leaders around the world.
Msgr. Esseff reflects on how we are to daily discern the movement of Christ in us and the movement of the self, the world, and the activity of the enemy.
Transition:
Become aware of the love with which God looks upon me as I begin this examen.
Gratitude
Note the gifts that God’s love has given you this day and give thanks to God for them.
Petition
Ask God for an insight and a strength that will make this examen a work of grace, fruitful beyond your human capacity alone.
Review
With God, review the day. Look for the stirrings in your heart and the thoughts which God has given you this day.
Look also for those which have not been of God.
Review your choices in response to both, and throughout the day in general.
Forgiveness.
Ask for the healing touch of the forgiving God who, with love and respect for you, removes your heart’s burdens.
Renewal.
Look to the following day and, with God, plan concretely how to live it in accord with God’s loving desire for your life.
Transition:
Aware of God’s presence with you, prayerfully conclude the examen
*The above text was adapted from a pdf online entitled “The Examen” found here
Msgr. John A. Esseff is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton. Msgr. Esseff served as a retreat director and confessor to St. Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the missionaries of charity around the world. Msgr. Esseff encountered St. Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical missions, a Catholic organization established by Pope St. John Paul II to bring the Good News to the world especially to the poor. Msgr. Esseff assisted the founders of the Institute for Priestly Formation and continues to serve as a spiritual director for the Institute. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters and seminarians, and other religious leaders around the world.
The people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
After all the people had been baptized
and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,
heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
in bodily form like a dove.
And a voice came from heaven,
“You are my beloved Son;
with you I am well pleased.”
Msgr. John A. Esseff is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton. He was ordained on May 30, 1953, by the late Bishop William J. Hafey, D.D. at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Scranton, PA. Msgr. Esseff served a retreat director and confessor to St. Mother Teresa. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the missionaries of charity around the world. Msgr. Esseff encountered St. Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical missions, a Catholic organization established by St. Pope John Paul II to bring the Good News to the world especially to the poor. Msgr. Esseff assisted the founders of the Institute for Priestly Formation and continues to serve as a spiritual director for the Institute. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters and seminarians and other religious leaders around the world.
Wisdom from the Psalmshas become one of my all-time favorite Dr. Peter Kreeft books. Not only does this book inspire me to think and learn, but best of all it helped me to grow even more deeply in love with the Psalms and prayer. This particular podcast is a favorite as well. The Psalms only get better (is that possible?) when experienced with such an incredible guide. Give your prayer life a big boost and pick up a copy of this wonderful book.
The Psalms are the most popular, most universally loved and used book in the Bible, which in turn is the most popular book in the world. They are hymns, songs, poems and prayers, both formal (liturgical and communal) and informal (spontaneous, personal, and individual); and this gives them many layers of meaning rather than one, unlike theologies and creeds.
They Psalms are literally inexhaustible, so a new book of reflections on them is always welcome. Especially a book by the beloved, widely read, best-selling author and philosopher, Peter Kreeft.
In this work Kreeft shares his personal explorations into the riches of the Psalms, his profound expeditions into this deep ocean of the divinely inspired spiritual water. He focuses on the dozen or so Psalms that are most people’s favorites, including Kreeft.
Kreeft says that the Pslams are powerful prayers, and a spiritual weapon that God himself has given us for our great task of spiritual warfare, which is human life on earth.
What prayers did Jesus and his disciples pray? The Psalms! As all Jews have always done ever since they had them. The Psalms are God’s answer to our plea, ‘Teach us to pray.’ Christ prayed them not only in synagogue but throughout His life, and at his death. He prayed Psalm 22, ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’ even as He was dying on the Cross. – Peter Kreeft, from the Introduction
What a delight to talk once again to Sr. Mary Ann Fatula O.P. this time about Drawing Close to the Holy Spirit: Keys to a Transformed Life and Joy Heart! She provides us with a road map for the spiritual journey that takes us to the heart of the Holy Trinity led by the person of Love, the Holy Spirit. Highly recommended!
Regardless of our past, or the trials afflicting us now or those we may face in the future, when we draw near to the Holy Spirit, our lives change for the better. Closeness with the Holy Spirit is the “secret” of holiness and happiness.
In this short yet penetrating work, Sr. Mary Ann Fatula reflects on how tenderly and powerfully the Holy Spirit offers us the precious gift of intimacy with Himself. Through the graces of our Baptism and Confirmation, the Holy Spirit― the Third Divine Person who is the Father’s and Son’s sublime Love for Each other ― gives Himself to us to be our “Beloved,” our mighty Healer, our intimate Friend and Consoler, our constant Companion and Strength, our gentle Teacher and Guide.
Every page of this exquisite book will speak to your heart. Using the Church’s hymns and prayers, you will learn to pray to the Holy Spirit with love and tenderness, entrusting Him with your every concern, and inviting Him to possess you and anoint your every breath and moment of your life.
The saints show us how the Holy Spirit truly is our fierce “Protector” who loves us and “fights” powerfully for us. When we are weighed down with problems and worries, when we long for more joy and serenity, the Holy Spirit invites us to draw close to Him and let Him do for us what we cannot do ourselves.
It is the Holy Spirit who lifts us up when we are discouraged and fills us with His comfort and peace when we are sad and lonely. The Holy Spirit is the One who deepens our intimacy with the Father and the Son, and who gives us a heart full of empathy for others.
Drawing Close to the Holy Spirit invites you to taste the sweetness of the Holy Spirit and savor in your own life the wonders He accomplishes in those who draw close to Him.
Msgr. Esseff reflects on the Angelic Realm, the celebration of the Eucharist, and the magnificence of the Throne of God
What a delight to talk once again to Sr. Mary Ann Fatula O.P. this time about Drawing Close to the Holy Spirit: Keys to a Transformed Life and Joy Heart! She provides us with a road map for the spiritual journey that takes us to the heart of the Holy Trinity led by the person of Love, the Holy Spirit. Highly recommended!
