It’s a familiar prayer:Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day/night be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule and guide. Amen.We probably all learned this prayer when we were children, and the image of a personal guardian angel—a celestial being appointed to watch over us—enfolded our childhood fears and joys. As adults, though, many of us have drifted away from that childlike confidence in a protector, but as we celebrate the Fea...

On October 14, Oscar Romero will become a saint.

I am a Catholic. I am divorced.Those two parts of my being don’t always sit comfortably together, but it is reality for millions of people worldwide, and it’s my reality.My parents stayed married until death did them part, and they were truly miserable for most of their lives together. They made their children miserable. They were determined to not divorce, and they both ended up bitter, manipulative, and extremely unhappy. With that example in mind, I had determined my own vocation ...

As you read this, your mind and your heart might be heavy with all the problems that weigh you down. They may seem myriad. They may seem unfair. But the truth is, they all have a solution!Back around 1700, a German priest commissioned a special piece of art as an act of thanksgiving for a favor Our Lady had bestowed upon his grandparents. The couple had a terrible problem—they were in fact on the verge of divorce—with no solution in sight.The husband went to seek counsel from a pries...

St. Brigid and St. Patrick are Ireland‘s two patron saints, and among the most famous. But whereas we know a lot about St. Patrick, we only have three contemporary sources of information about St. Brigid—and two of them contradict each other!That hasn’t stopped many people from being devoted to her. Here’s a beautiful prayer to St. Brigid:Brigid of the Mantle, encompass us,Lady of the Lambs, protect us,Keeper of the Hearth, kindle us.Beneath your mantle, gather us,And res...

There’s always been a special place in the Catholic Church for the keeping of spiritual journals. Some of our most beloved saints, including St. Therese of Lisieux (her journal was published as The Story of a Soul) and St. Ignatius Loyola (whose journal became the Spiritual Exercises), kept spiritual journals.Closer to our own time, Pope John XXIII kept a personal journal from when he was a teenager until he died, and Pope John Paul II’s personal notes are also soon to be published i...

There seems to be one observation with which everyone can agree, no matter how much discord there might be around other issues, and here it is: there are a lot of problems in our culture. Seemingly insurmountable problems.Knots, we might call them.For over 300 years there has been a special devotion to Our Lady Undoer of Knots. It is one of Pope Francis’ favorite devotions. And it’s not difficult to see why. Our culture needs healing, it needs transformation, it needs an influx of lo...

They’re called “keynotes.”A keynote speech is a talk or presentation that establishes a main underlying theme. It sets up the framework for a program of events that will follow, summarizing the core message or the most important revelation. The term itself comes from the practice of a cappella music: doo-wop or barbershop singers played a note before singing to determine the key in which the song would be performed.Gabrielle Bossis, writing in the spiritual journal that would b...

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”(from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll)Right now, it seems impossible to believe that things will ever be...

By Sr. Anne Joan Flanagan, FSP Pope Francis wrote that mercy is “the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.” That image of the bridge, of course, reminds us of the very role of the Pope, the “Pontifex” (bridge-builder). In the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy which started this week it is also a fitting image for Mary, the Mother of God, whose feast we celebrate today under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe. At Guadalupe...