"Teach me, like Mary, to sit at Thy feet, and to hear Thy word." Image: Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, Wiki Commons, (source). 1. MY Lord Jesus, how wonderful were those conversations which Thou didst hold from time to time with Thy disciples after Thy resurrection. When Thou wentest with two of them to Emmaus, Thou didst explain …
Continue reading The Kingdom of God – Christ is Risen!” – meditation for Easter from Cardinal Newman
"It is over now, O Lord, as with Thy sufferings, so with our humiliations." Image: "Jesus is Placed in the Tomb", Cuypershuis, Wiki Commons, (source) 1. IT is over now, O Lord, as with Thy sufferings, so with our humiliations. We have followed Thee from Thy fasting in the wilderness till Thy death on the Cross. For forty …
Continue reading “It Is Consummated” – meditation for Holy Saturday from Cardinal Newman
"He gave the word and His heart broke." Image: El Greco, Jesus Carrying the Cross, (source) 1. His bodily pains were greater than those of any martyr, because He willed them to be greater. All pain of body depends, as to be felt at all, so to be felt in this or that degree, on the …
Continue reading The Bodily Sufferings of Our Lord – meditation for Good Friday from Cardinal Newman
"Every fresh sin, every fresh ingratitude I now commit, was among the blows and stripes which once fell on thee." Image: Wiki Commons Public Domain. 1. AFTER all His discourses were consummated (Matt. xxvi. 1), fully finished and brought to an end, then He said, The Son of Man will be betrayed to crucifixion. As an …
"He trod the winepress alone." 1. SYMPATHY may be called an eternal law, for it is signified or rather transcendentally and archetypically fulfilled in the ineffable mutual love of the Divine Trinity. God, though infinitely One, has ever been Three. He ever has rejoiced in His Son and His Spirit, and they in Him—and thus through …
Continue reading Our Lord Refuses Sympathy – meditation for Spy Wednesday from Cardinal Newman
"As literal madness is derangement of the reason, so sin is derangement of the heart, of the spirit, of the affection." Image: The Transfiguration of Christ, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), (Source: Wikicommons) Editors' Introduction The gospel of the Second Sunday of Lent is the account of the Transfiguration. At first glance this may seem an …
Continue reading The Insanity of Sin and the Glory of Christ – The Second Sunday in Lent
"Ye play with your palms and crowns beneath the very altar." There are many moments of beauty and pathos in the Church's year. But few are so equally filled with both bitterness and glory as the feast of the Holy Innocents. It is very noticeable that Christ's coming to the world is marked with blood …
"If Jesus be with you, no enemy can harm you." Image: Christ and the woman at the well, Rubens. Wiki Commons CC The Imitation of ChristThomas à Kempis Book II Chapters VII-VIII The Imitation of Christ is available from Amazon US and Amazon UK Loving Jesus Above All Things Blessed is he who appreciates what …
Continue reading Loving Jesus Above All Things – The Imitation of Christ
How should we see the Cross in our lives as Christians? In honour of the traditional feast of The Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14th September), let's reflect again on the inspiring challenge presented in Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ (see here for UK readers). Image: St Helena and the Cross, Wiki Commons. …
Continue reading The Royal Road of the Holy Cross – The Imitation of Christ
"He relieved pain by the touch of his hand and the sign of the Cross." Image: from Wiki Commons CC St Philip Neri's Miraculous GiftsMay 25 Philip's Miraculous Gifts Philip's great and solid virtues were crowned and adorned by the divine Majesty with various and extraordinary favours, which he in vain used every artifice, if possible, …