Please click the link to read the reflection on today’s Gospel: The heroic minute, immediately upon waking – the first battle of the day
A Carthusian monk, from the film “Into Great Silence” 5 th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Mark 1:29-39 Rising very early before dawn, [Jesus] left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. After exorcising a demoniac, healing St. Peter’s mother-in-law, and curing many others, Jesus teaches us the absolute primacy of the interior life by rising early the next morning, before it was day, so as to go to a deserted place and pray. Fr. Conrelius a’ Lapide tells us: “Learn here from Christ to give the early morning to prayer, and to rise up with the dawn, so as to have leisure for meditation, and to give the first-fruits of the day to God. For the dawn of day is a friend of the Muses, but a greater friend of God and the angels.” It is better to pray in the morning Together with all the spiritual doctors before and after, St. Francis de Sales recommends that mental prayer (including the Rosary) be done in the early morning [Introduction to the Devout Life II,1]: “Give an hour every day to meditation before dinner [i.e. …
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Judgement and Purgatory: Part 2
Read more: Judgement and Purgatory: Part 2
As we observe the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls on 1 and 2 November, we might ask if and how we are separated from the dead, and what our prayers for them mean. John McDade SJ answers these questions by exploring further the doctrine of Purgatory – how are we given life in death through achieving complete attentiveness to God?…
Read more: Judgement and Purgatory: Part 2