Over the years, I have had the joy of republishing many of Fulton J. Sheen’s books. One day, while working on his 1937 classic, The Cross and the Beatitudes, I was asked by the editorial staff to come up with a creative subtitle for the book.  After reading through Fulton Sheen’s analysis of how the Sermon on the Mount (The Beatitudes) is connected to the Sermon on Mount Calvary (The Seven Last Words), I came up with the subtitle, The Two Greatest Sermons Ever Preached.

Now that subtitle wasn’t simply clever marketing. The longer I spent reading Sheen’s manuscript, the more convinced I became that he had uncovered something many Christians overlook. The first sermon Christ gave on the Mount, and the last sermon He gave on Mount Calvary are not two unrelated events. They belong together. On the mountain, Christ teaches the Beatitudes. On Calvary, He lives them.

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12)

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The Interior Shape of a Blessed Life

When Jesus proclaimed the Beatitudes, I believe that He was not offering a list of ideals meant to inspire admiration from a distance. He was describing a way of life meant to be lived—a pattern of the heart shaped by grace and tested by the Cross. 

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen often reminded his listeners that the Beatitudes are not sentimental promises or spiritual slogans. They are paradoxes. They overturn the world’s understanding of success, strength, and happiness. In a culture that equates blessing with comfort and power, Christ calls the poor, the meek, the merciful, and the persecuted blessed. These words do not flatter the ego; they convert it.

He also invited us to receive the Beatitudes not as moral demands imposed from outside, but as the interior fruit of a life united to Christ. He stated that “the Beatitudes are not eight separate virtues to be mastered one by one, but a single vision of holiness: a portrait of Christ Himself.” In truth, Jesus did not merely preach the Beatitudes; He lived them. And they reached their fullest expression on the Cross.

Sheen taught that the Sermon on the Mount finds its fulfillment on Calvary. What Christ proclaimed with His lips, He sealed with His life. Poverty of spirit, meekness, mercy, purity of heart, endurance under persecution—all are revealed most clearly in the suffering love of Christ crucified. The Beatitudes are not detached from suffering but transfigured by it.

The Interior Disposition Needed to Live the Beatitudes

Last year, I was asked to lead a retreat on the Beatitudes. In my opening conference, I encouraged the retreatants not to measure themselves against perfection. The Beatitudes are not spiritual scorecards. They are windows, and through them Christ allows us to see what He is quietly forming within our hearts. I encouraged everyone not to approach the Beatitudes as a list of impossible ideals, but as an invitation to discover the interior dispositions Christ desires to form within them.

Throughout the retreat, I reminded the group that the Beatitudes are not merely sayings to admire. They are dispositions to be formed. When Christ proclaimed them on the mount, He was revealing the very shape of a heart transformed by grace. As you contemplate each Beatitude, try not to ask, How well am I doing? Instead, ask, Lord, what are You trying to form within me?

As our retreat continued, I invited the participants to reflect on questions such as these:

• Where do I resist dependence upon God?
• Where do I avoid sorrow rather than bringing it to Christ?
• Where do I cling to control instead of surrender?
• Where does resentment still linger in my heart?
• Where is my love divided?

These questions are not meant to condemn or accuse. They are invitations to grace, as the Beatitudes reveal not where you have failed, but where Christ desires to continue His work within you. Be patient with yourself. Transformation is seldom dramatic. More often, it happens quietly, one act of surrender at a time.

Christ, the Living Beatitudes

On the Cross, Christ is poor in spirit, stripped of everything and trusting the Father alone. He is meek, restraining power that could destroy His enemies. He mourns, bearing the sorrow of a fallen world. He shows mercy, forgiving those who crucify Him. He is pure of heart, loving without division. He makes peace, reconciling humanity to God. He is persecuted for righteousness’ sake and remains faithful unto death.

Seen in this light, the Beatitudes are not separate virtues to be achieved one by one. They are a single portrait of Christ. To live the Beatitudes is not to imitate a list, but to conform one’s life to Him. The closer the disciple draws to Christ, the more these dispositions take shape within the heart.

Fulton Sheen often reminded us that Christianity is not the imitation of Christ from a distance, but participation in His life. The Beatitudes describe what happens when Christ lives within the soul. They unfold not through moral strain, but through surrender to love shaped by the Cross.

The Blessed Life in an Unblessed World

The Beatitudes do not describe the world as it is. Rather, they reveal a life as God intends it to be lived within a broken world. Christ never promised that the blessed life would be easy, admired, or widely understood. He promised that it would be true.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen often observed that the Christian is called not to escape the world, but to live differently within it. The Beatitudes are not ideals reserved for saints in stained glass. They are meant to be lived in homes, workplaces, friendships, and in our daily struggles—quietly, faithfully, and often without recognition.

To live the Beatitudes today is to accept a certain tension. The poor in spirit will appear impractical. The meek will be misunderstood. Those who hunger for righteousness will seem restless. The merciful will risk being wounded again. The pure of heart will resist illusion.

Peacemakers will refuse easy compromise. Those who mourn will carry sorrow honestly. The faithful will endure opposition without bitterness. Yet Christ calls this life blessed!

Sheen reminds us that happiness cannot be secured by rearranging circumstances. The orientation of the soul forms it. The Beatitudes shape that orientation. They form a heart anchored in God rather than in success, approval, or comfort. Such a heart is not immune to suffering, but it is free.

Let us ask ourselves: how do the Beatitudes take flesh in our own daily life? Where are we being asked to live differently? Where does Christ’s vision challenge our assumptions about happiness? The blessed life is not lived all at once. It is lived through countless small choices that align the heart with truth.

The Beatitudes will continue their work within us as we live them imperfectly, patiently, and honestly. Christ blesses those who let Him reshape the heart—even when the world does not understand.

Perhaps that is why Archbishop Sheen called our attention to these two mountains. One teaches us what a disciple is meant to become. The other shows us how Christ makes that transformation possible.

Editor’s Note: This article is a part of a CE original series, “Cultivating the Soul of a Disciple with Blessed Fulton Sheen,” in celebration of and preparation for Archbishop Sheen’s beatification this September.

Author’s Note: If you enjoyed this reflection, you may wish to continue exploring Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s insights on the Beatitudes. His classic work, The Cross and the Beatitudes, is included in my anthology, The Cries of Jesus from the Cross, in which Fulton Sheen beautifully demonstrates how the Sermon on the Mount finds its fulfillment in Christ’s saving sacrifice on Calvary.

Readers wishing to continue this journey will also find a guided retreat on the Beatitudes in my latest book, The Soul of a Disciple: Fulton Sheen’s Meditations on the Cross, the Eucharist, and the Christian Life (Sophia Institute Press). Drawing upon Sheen’s timeless wisdom, the retreat invites readers to pray with the Beatitudes and discover how Christ gradually forms His own life within every disciple.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Why is it so hard to make a genuinely well-crafted saint film? This is a question that has baffled my mind for as long as I could remember. I grew up during the great digital transition of cinema where access to filming equipment suddenly became massively cheaper and more available to the consumer market which I don’t doubt led to the abundance of saint films being produced and distributed to the vast array of Catholics who simply wanted to see their favorite saints on the big screen.

While such a great saint rush managed to produce some honorable mentions amidst the great quantity of films, it was clear that the expertise and craftsmanship that was so prevalent in the making of saint films from the 30s-60s was a mark of the past. Saint films grew into their own private genre consisting of wooden dialogue, a focus on the miraculous, and an unbelievably stoic and cold portrayal of the saint amidst a crowd of weak performances and writing.

And yet, there is a sentiment in Catholic culture that is quite prevalent in accepting such films as “good enough” or “at the very least they’re not secular.” The idea has seemed to be that as long as these films can tell a perfect and polite summary of lives of the saints, all is forgiven and enough.

This has been the case until a decade ago when there seemed to be a rise in filmmakers who were Christian instead of simply Christians who were “filmmakers.” The difference came when storytellers began to be more intrigued with who the saints were in their unique personhood instead of what they meant to people. When the image and story of the film finally captured the radiance and beauty of the saints in a way that was also radiant and beautiful. Films such as “A Hidden Life,” “Cabrini,” and “Triumph of the Heart” immediately come to mind. While maintaining their flaws, they demonstrate a wondrously possible future for saint films where such films have the ability to one day be shown and compared alongside other timeless works of art which Catholicism has been privileged to produce.

With this in mind, when I heard that Francesca Scorsese (daughter of Martin Scorsese) directed an episode in their “saints series” based on the recently canonized St. Carlo Acutis, I knew I had to watch it. The very idea of a modern telling of Carlo Acutis’ story brought up many interesting questions as to how it would be told in such a modern and surprisingly normal setting compared to other saint portrayals.

And wow…was I pleasantly surprised.

From the very first moments of the film, through Martin Scrosese’s narration, the whole story finds its centerpiece and orientation in the question of “What made Carlo want to live so radically different?” Far from the exhaustive amounts of biopics where the only purpose lies in summarizing a person’s past life within the span of a few hours, this story is not only specific in its end goal, but bold. In films no one has dared question the sanctity and piety of the saints, nor their miraculous ability to overcome every obstacle thrown at them. But has anyone dared to explore the real why of such motivation?

Do we really know what we’re saying, let alone care, when we say these saints did it all for “love of God”? Did this 15-year-old saint simply just get lucky with an extremely praiseworthy love of God that seems so distant from the everyday, ordinary love of the faithful? This film begs to differ.

Carlo is shown in all his messiness, struggle, joy, excitement, wonder, and personality that I have never seen depicted before. Through hard conversations with his friends or meetings with his teacher, it is made apparent that he is living a life set apart from the rest while at the same time holding on to true connections with others. Many of Carlo’s personal quotes are mentioned regularly within dialogue in an almost episodic manner as these various scenes play out between Carlo and the world, revealing more and more about the boy underneath the saint.

Often in biopics, especially when such a person’s life has been filtered and molded to a level of impersonal perfection by the public light, it can be very difficult to get the audience to care or even sympathize with such a limited and shallow portrayal. This problem only increases when that person is a saint. More than simply slapping on struggles and vices on the character to make them seem more human, this film gives Carlo an authentic portrayal of wonder. It is made clear through his conversations and interactions throughout his life that Carlo didn’t want to become a saint because of some obligation or otherworldly spirituality, but because he fell in love with the God who He encountered on a personal and beautiful level. No prideful striving for greatness or recognition, but rather a relatable and personal desire to explore the infinite desires of the human heart.

Not to bypass the highly important technical level, this film sets a new standard for what we ought to expect when it comes to the cinematography, performances, and dialogue of saint films. This is how impactful saint stories can be once we put aside our ideals and prejudices to tell the stories of the real people behind the stained glass. To not treat sanctity as something stereotypical, otherworldly, and impossible, but rather as something that lights hearts on fire with everyday love, wonder, and beauty.

Photo by Matthew Robin Dix on Unsplash

“I will pray for you.”

We say this often when we intend to intercede for others in their needs. But we hardly reflect on the grave obligation and power in those words. We fail to realize what bringing others’ needs before God and bringing God’s blessings to them really entails.

The Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28 shows us that, for us to intercede for others before God and win graces for them, it is not enough to simply offer prayers for them. To intercede for others effectively, we must be ready to endure many things and practice many virtues.

We must practice humble trust in God

The woman came to Jesus, a Jew, even though she was a Gentile. She did not turn to any of the many pagan gods of her people. She seemingly did not try to drive out the demon on her own. She also realized that she needed help and was not ashamed to say so. She humbly and trustingly approached Jesus because she had faith in Him as the Good Lord, saying, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David.”

For us to intercede for others, we must also come to Jesus with the same humble trust of this woman. We do not pray for others based on our own merit and virtue. We come to Jesus even when we feel unworthy and unprepared to intercede for others. We approach Him because He is the Lord and He is always good to all persons.

Our prayer must be confident

This woman confidently presented her situation in prayer to Jesus: “My daughter is tormented by a demon.” She simply stated the need of her beloved daughter without telling Him what to do. She prayed out of love for her daughter and then allowed Jesus to act and respond in any way that He wanted.

She reminds us of the confident and loving words of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the wedding feast of Cana. Speaking to Jesus of the wedding couple and their guests, she said, “They have no wine” (Jn. 2:3). These types of prayer show love for others and confidence in Jesus. They always obtain for us the graces we desire.

In praying for others, we too should simply bring their needs to Jesus in prayer and allow Him to act. We pray for them with love to a God of love. So, we are not to give in to worry and anxiety for them as we pray for them. We also do not try to be the Savior for them. Pray out of love and give God a chance to act as Lord.

We must be courageous

The Canaanite woman is not discouraged by anything. Jesus initially gives her a cold shoulder: “But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.” Jesus’ disciples also declared her a nuisance and urged Him to dismiss her, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” Jesus then refused her request, answering, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But neither the silence of Jesus, nor the rejection by His disciples, nor His refusal discouraged this woman.

Are we discouraged when Jesus is silent in our prayer? Do we give up when the situations of our loved ones deteriorate after many years of praying for them? Do we give up when we feel rejected and unwanted by others? Authentic intercessors do not get discouraged for any reason because they believe in the goodness of the Lord Jesus.

We must persevere in prayer

The woman still approached to pray and worship Jesus. “She came and did Him homage saying, ‘Lord, help me.’” This woman never stopped calling Jesus, “Lord,” worshiping Him, and asking for His help. Even if Jesus is silent or refusing her request, or she is dismissed by others, she would still approach Him as her sovereign Lord.

Do we also persevere in prayer to Jesus as our Lord and Savior? Do we submit to Him and depend on Him even when we don’t see signs of Him answering our prayers? Do we give in to the temptation to rebel and act as if we are our own lords? True intercessors continuously worship, pray, and submit to Jesus as their Lord.

We must be ready to accept whatever God offers us in return

When Jesus said to the woman that it was not right to give the children’s food to dogs, this woman replied by saying that she was ready to accept whatever He would offer her: “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” She does not claim any right to what she is asking for, but she is convinced of the goodness and graciousness of Jesus to all people.

As intercessors, are we also open to accepting whatever Jesus may offer to us in response to our prayers? We may not receive what we are asking for but He will give us what we need at that moment. How open are we to receiving all that Jesus permits in our lives as we intercede for others? Do we lose our peace when we don’t get what we expected and prayed for?

This woman prayed and endured for her daughter till the very end, and Jesus praised her faith and granted her all her wishes, exclaiming, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” Her faith was great because she believed in His goodness above all things. She interceded successfully because she believed in the goodness of Jesus the Lord. She believed that He would diffuse His goodness to her daughter through her prayer. Through this faith, she came to experience the power of her intercession as her daughter was delivered from the demon at that moment. An intercessor obtained the liberation of a loved one from demons.

St. Paul reminded the Church in Rome that God shows His goodness in permitting disobedience in all persons, Jews and Gentiles alike. He does not force them to obey Him but permits their free choices because He wants to have mercy on all people, “For God delivered all to disobedience that He might have mercy on all” (Rom. 11:13-15). This is the goodness of God to all—saints and sinners—all the time.

This is a powerful reminder that, even as we face our own evils and the many evils in the world, we can still be instruments and channels of God’s mercy and healing to others. We can pray and cultivate the many virtues that we need to be effective intercessors for those who are struggling with many evils and sins. We can endure many things to bring them the grace of God only because of our faith in the undying goodness and Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We experience this goodness of God for us in each Eucharist. It is also in this sacrament that Jesus nourishes our faith in His loving goodness to us all. Let us believe and abide in this divine goodness so that we can become effective intercessors for all our beloved brothers and sisters in all their times of need.

Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!

Photo by Justin Follis on Unsplash

The Gospel frequently places realities beside one another that seem, at first, entirely disproportionate. In the preceding reflection, we considered Christ’s startling declaration that He had come to bring not peace but the sword. That sword is not opposed to the peace of Christ. It is the truth that cuts through false harmony, exposes our divided loyalties, and reveals the distance between the life we profess and the life we actually live. Yet the sword does not merely expose the divided heart. It prepares the heart for the Cross.

Within the same discourse, Christ speaks about losing one’s life, taking up the Cross, and placing fidelity to Him above even the deepest natural affections. These are severe and almost overwhelming demands. Yet at the conclusion of that discourse, He speaks about something remarkably small, i.e. a cup of cold water offered to one of His little ones.

What relationship can there be between the sword, the Cross, and a cup of water? How can the surrender of an entire life be expressed in an action so ordinary that almost anyone could perform it? The answer reveals something essential about Christian discipleship. The sword of truth first exposes what is divided within us. The Cross then calls us to surrender the attachments and disordered loyalties that the sword has brought to light, but this total gift of the self does not ordinarily begin in a single heroic moment. It is learned through the hidden acts of fidelity by which grace gradually makes the divided heart whole.

The divided heart is perhaps one of the central spiritual problems of modern man. We want God, but we also want absolute control. We want Christ, provided that He does not interfere with certain attachments. We want the consolations of faith without the sword of truth. We want the peace of Christ without the purification that truth requires. We want Resurrection without the Cross.

Christ refuses this arrangement. He tells us, “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt. 10:38–39). Here we encounter another of Christianity’s apparent paradoxes. The world tells us that life is found through self-preservation. Secure yourself. Protect yourself. Assert yourself. Arrange your existence so that as little as possible can be demanded of you. This is why My Way is such a popular song, yet Christ tells us that a life desperately preserved eventually becomes a life lost. This is not because Christianity despises the human person. It is because Christianity understands the person more profoundly. Man was created for gift. We become ourselves not by endlessly contracting into the self but by going out of ourselves in love. The person who lives entirely in self-defense eventually becomes imprisoned by fear, i.e. fear of sacrifice, fear of suffering, fear of obedience, fear of losing control, and finally fear of death itself.

Christ shows us another way because He first lives it Himself. He does not ask His disciples to enter a path that He has refused to walk. The Son gives Himself entirely to the Father and entirely for us. “No one has greater love than this,” He says, “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn. 15:13). The grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies. The Cross appears to be the destruction of life, yet in Christ it becomes the passage into life.

After all of this—the sword, divided households, the Cross, and the loss of life—the Gospel concludes with an almost startlingly gentle image. Christ speaks of a cup of cold water: “Whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward” (Mt. 10:42). A cup of water seems strangely small after the Cross. Yet perhaps this is precisely the point. The total gift of a life is ordinarily learned through small acts of love. Heroic discipleship is most often hidden inside ordinary fidelity. Most Christians will never be asked to shed their blood in martyrdom, but every Christian must learn to die to himself daily.

We learn this death through patience when we are tired, kindness toward someone who irritates us, fidelity to a duty that no one notices, time given to the lonely, forgiveness when resentment feels more satisfying, and acts of service for which we expect no recognition. These things appear insignificant to the world, but they are not insignificant to Christ. The cup of cold water and the Cross belong together. We rarely become capable of giving everything in one dramatic moment. Grace educates the heart. The person who learns to surrender himself in small things is being prepared for greater surrender. The person who refuses every small sacrifice should not imagine that he will suddenly become heroic when the great trial arrives.

The Christian life is shaped by thousands of hidden acts in which the divided heart is gradually made whole. This is where Isaiah and the Gospel finally meet. Isaiah teaches us that worship without conversion becomes empty. Christ teaches us that discipleship without surrender is impossible. The cup of cold water shows us where conversion becomes concrete. Metanoia cannot remain an abstract rearrangement of ideas. It must become flesh in mercy, patience, courage, truthfulness, justice, and love.

The question, therefore, is not simply whether we are religious. The people confronted by Isaiah were intensely religious. They offered sacrifices, observed feasts, and multiplied prayers. The question is whether our religion has led to conversion. Has the encounter with Christ changed the way we think? Has it changed the way we speak about those who irritate us? Has it changed our use of money, time, authority, and influence? Has it made us more truthful and more merciful? Are we becoming more courageous and more capable of sacrifice?

Each of us probably has some region of the heart that we still protect from Christ. There are attachments we would prefer Him not to question, resentments we do not especially want Him to heal, and compromises we hope He will overlook. We offer Him many things while quietly placing boundaries around the one thing we are not yet prepared to surrender. Christ refuses a divided heart because He loves us too much to leave us divided within ourselves. “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt. 22:37). Not part of the heart. Not the religious portion of the heart. Not the part that remains after every other loyalty has been satisfied. The whole heart.

Yet the severity of this demand should never cause us to despair. God reveals what is divided in order to heal it. Immediately after Isaiah’s terrible condemnation of Israel’s false worship comes one of the most beautiful invitations in Scripture: “Come now, let us set things right, says the Lord: though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they may become white as wool” (Is. 1:18). God exposes sin not because He delights in our humiliation, but because He desires our cleansing. He reveals what is false so that He may make us true. The sword of Christ is therefore finally the sword of the divine physician. It cuts through illusion, hypocrisy, and compromise so that the peace He gives may reach the deepest places of the human heart. The Prince of Peace brings the sword because there can be no true peace without truth, no reconciliation without conversion, and no Resurrection without the Cross.

Photo by Erwann Stephanne on Unsplash

There are times when people say, with varying degrees of facetiousness, that the difference between Catholics and Christian denominations is that Catholics don’t read the Bible. All too often, there is at least a grain of truth in that. I personally did not grow up reading the Bible. Indeed, it was not until about a year ago that I read the Bible in its entirety. Listened, rather. I will take a moment here to recommend listening to the Bible in a Year podcast.

This was actually my second attempt at listening to the Bible in a Year podcast (or Bible in a year-and-a-half, as I like to think of it). The first time, a few years ago, I had made the decision that I really should read (listen to) the Bible, and so I set myself the task of doing it. It was a chore, aimed toward accomplishing my goal. I made it past day 100, but not much farther.

The second time I attempted to listen to the Bible, my starting place was much different. I was listening to a beloved Voice, not checking off a task. I was spending quality time with a loved One, not trying to rush through a project. (To offer clarity, in the event that it is needed: I am referring to God’s Voice, not Fr. Mike’s, although that has become quite soothing and familiar as well).

A great part of the change in me was coming to recognize that God’s Word is a living word. In some way I do not understand, God is present in the books and words of the Bible. Listening to the readings and seeing the reverence with which the very books containing His word are treated during Mass helped me understand better that He is present there.

This brings me to a cherished analogy that I have about reading the Bible. When I open the book and begin to read, it is like sitting at the feet of a dearly beloved grandfather, listening to him. Sometimes he tells stories of long ago, sometimes of more recent events. Sometimes of people I am familiar with, sometimes of people I have never heard of. Sometimes I understand clearly what he is telling me, sometimes I do not understand the significance (and I may or may not understand at a later date). It is a time full of trust and love and meaning, even if I do not grasp the meaning at the time. I am confident in his love, as I sit there, and trust that he will never lead me astray. Every moment spent at his feet deepens our love.

I clearly see this when reading the Bible. Mine is not an approach of theological study, but of presence. It’s as if, when we choose to set aside time and open our Bible, we say: here I am; I am listening. Then our loving God speaks to us in exactly the way we need, exactly the words we need in that moment. No time spent at His feet is wasted. This can be easy to see when we encounter that phrase that overwhelms us, being so clearly spoken to us just where we are. It can be harder to see when our eyes glaze over a bit as we trudge through a list of names or the details of a building we can’t quite picture. It is a matter of trust, in those moments. He is there, and we are still sitting with Him, listening to Him, and in that, there is great value.

As it may be difficult to find time to visit a grandparent, no matter how good your intentions, so too it can be difficult to “find time” read the Bible. For many of us, our “lack” of time is simply a misuse of time. I cannot in good faith say I do not have time to read the Bible, when the screen time alert on my phone tells me I spend hours a day looking at that little screen. Or when the list of novels I have read or music I have listened to keeps growing. These are only a few of the competitors for our time. I do not condemn them as bad, but I urge us to be more aware of the time we have been given and how we spend it. I consider mint a delicious plant, but given an opportunity, it will take over a garden and choke out the other crops. We need to prioritize the things that truly nourish us over the ones that taste good in the moment.

I encourage everyone to read the Bible. To learn where we came from, where we are going, who we are, and who we are traveling with. It has been such an incredible, life-changing journey for me. I know for some it can be hard to get started. Should I start at the beginning and read through? Follow a study plan? Join a group? Flip it open and start reading at random? Do not let those questions paralyze you or prevent you from starting. If that is where you are, I recommend yet again listening to the Bible in a Year podcast as an option. Or starting with the Gospels and hearing Jesus’ loving words and watching Him move amongst His people.

Sit. Start. Listen. He is waiting for you! Full of love and longing and tenderness. Be willing to give Him time, space, and attention. Bring your heart, but not an agenda. It is a living Word that wants to lead and transform you, not a topic to master and use. Feel for the passage that tugs on your heart and sit with it. Feel nothing? That is okay, too. What a beautiful gift to sit with someone even if you feel nothing and would like to be somewhere else. Know that He is working on your heart even when you feel nothing or have no new “big thoughts.”

Should I read a Bible with great commentary? That can be helpful. But also, the greatest of all interpreters will be with you (ask Him to come!) and will move in your heart and life. Theological study is good, but spending time with a loved one does not require it. Do not get caught up in details (“why was the cloak described in one place as purple and another as red? Did they hear the voice or not?”) so that you miss what He wants to tell you. You are not problem solving, you are spending time with a living Being who is moving you to become who He made you to be. He is infinitely patient and gentle. Be patient and gentle with yourself. Scripture passages will begin to stick and resurface in a beautiful way.

My six-year-old daughter will at times get upset because someone tells her something she already knows. You may already be familiar with all the stories in the New Testament (or perhaps the whole Bible!), but I promise you, you do not “already know.” Spend time with God’s Word whenever you are able. Listen to Him. Pick up that amazing gift He has given us and let Him know, “here I am!”

Photo by Jessica Mangano on Unsplash

When Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, he knew that the world he was asked to engage with was one of doubt, atheism, material acquisition, hate, violence, and war. Thus, he began his encyclical Deus Caritas Est with these words:

In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. For this reason, I wish in my first Encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others.

Love, not hate. Love, not possession. Love, not politics. Love, not war. Love, not doubt. Benedict began his pontificate in a world in which billions live for the moment. But as his encyclical teaches, God takes on human flesh so that He can teach humans overwhelmed with hate how to love. He teaches love through the example of His life. He loves even those who torture and kill him. He teaches love not just through words but with actions.

God’s blessings are ubiquitous, everywhere one looks, everywhere one goes. The glory of God is manifest in Nature: who can delude themselves into thinking that Nature, including human events, are products of contingency, of chance, of a natural process without the Transcendent Being behind them?

This series on the History of Love during the past several months has stretched from the ancient Greeks to the Hebrews, to Jesus and the disciple whom Jesus loved, to Paul and Augustine, to the Medieval mystics, to St. Francis of Assisi and his followers. We have learned of Benedict’s theory of ascending and descending love, of eros and agape, of Jesus’ healing through empathetic love, of John’s teaching that perfect love knows no fear, of Paul’s simple yet profound understanding that love is patient, of the visions of love of Julian of Norwich, and of the simple, self-sacrificing love of St. Francis and the Franciscans.

I am a college professor. Every year I teach students about Western Civilization and American Civilization. The history that I teach is not filled with love; it is filled with hatred, violence, oppression, barbarism, and war. How can the history of the 20th century, for example, World War I, World War II, Fascism, Communism, the Holocaust, the Cold War, Terrorism, etc., be squared with the history of Love? Conscientious humans face these same questions every day. How does love exist with hate, lust, consumption, bigotry, aggression, selfishness, and acquisitiveness? How can any teacher, whether secular or religious, inform their listeners, their readers, of a history of love when it contradicts the present reality of fear, violence, and death?

For many years I asked myself these questions. In my university experience when I was young I allowed the secularists to convince me that there is no real answer to the burning questions in my mind: What is love? Why is love trampled upon by hate? Why do the answers of the great theologians and the great philosophers seem so wonderful, and yet so unrealistic? For decades I was cast about in the boat of life, hugging the coast, afraid to venture away from the nearest lighthouse for fear that the waves of doubt and hate would cause my boat to founder and I would drown.

Then I discovered the Church.

What I discovered is succinctly stated by Pope Benedict in Deus Caritas Est:

The entire activity of the Church is an expression of a love that seeks the integral good of man: it seeks his evangelization through Word and Sacrament, an undertaking that is often heroic in the way it is acted out in history; and it seeks to promote man in the various arenas of life and human activity. Love is therefore the service that the Church carries out in order to attend constantly to man’s sufferings and his needs, including material needs.

Love. That is what the Church represents. I discovered it when I went to Mass. The feeling of Love overwhelmed me and helped to assuage my doubts to venture from the coast into the broad deep of God’s love. My perspective as a professor changed. I began to realize that how I approached history, focusing on the history of love (not hate), would teach students that there is hope in time, that there is something to hold onto in life. To show human compassion and charity is to show love. And when you show love, you show God—even if the student is just as doubtful and agnostic as I was when I was at university.

I discovered as well the treasure trove of love in the writings of the Catholic Church, in the great Catholic minds of the past, such as Augustine, Bonaventure, Francis, Teresa, Montaigne, Loyola, Caussade, Merton, Wojtyla, Ratzinger, and Bergoglio. Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have taught me much about love. Francis’ autobiography, published shortly before his death, is a document of love. Likewise, Benedict’s many writings on theologians and theology, on Christ and Paul, as well as his encyclicals constantly beat the drum of love. As he said in Deus Caritas Est:

The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support.

There is hope, then, even in the modern/postmodern world of weapons, atheism, hate, materialism, apathy, loneliness, and a too-heavy reliance upon technology. The hope is that which has always been present from the Creation, that God’s Creatures can sense and know if they drop the walls that keep them in ignorance. The hope is love. As long as Christianity and the Catholic Church continue to exist and thrive, feeding the world with the bread of life and the message of love, then we can know, we can be certain, that God’s Providence is with us to the end of time.

Editor’s Note: This article is the final part of a CE original series on the History of Love, pursuing the meaning of love and our understanding of it throughout time.

Photo by Ryan Kim on Unsplash

There are two St. Augustines in the Catholic calendar, and both deserve to be much better known. And please, pronounce them correctly. (They aren’t the same!)

The first is St. Augustine of Hippo, the great North African bishop, theologian, Doctor of the Church, and author of Confessions and The City of God. The second is St. Augustine of Canterbury, the sixth-century monk who left Rome to bring the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

They lived more than 150 years apart and served the Church in dramatically different ways. One spent his life wrestling with the deepest questions of theology and the restless desires of the human heart. The other crossed the sea with a small band of missionaries to proclaim Christ to a people who had largely never heard the Gospel.

Both, however, have something important to say to Catholics today.

St. Augustine of Hippo: The Restless Heart

Augustine was born in Tagaste, North Africa, in A.D. 354. His mother, St. Monica—you might have hear of her—was a Christian, but Augustine spent much of his youth far from the Faith. He pursued education, rhetoric, philosophy, professional success, and various religious ideas while searching for the truth.

He eventually encountered Christianity through the preaching of St. Ambrose of Milan. After a long and difficult intellectual and moral journey, Augustine was baptized in 387. He returned to North Africa, became a priest, and eventually became bishop of Hippo. There he spent the remainder of his life preaching, writing, defending the Faith, and caring for his people.

His writings would shape Christian thought for centuries. But perhaps Augustine’s greatest gift to Catholics is not found in one particular theological teaching. It is found in his own story. Augustine spent years trying to find happiness in things that could never satisfy him. He wanted God, but he also wanted to remain in control of his own life. He wanted truth, but he struggled to surrender himself completely to it.

That struggle should sound familiar. The modern world offers us countless ways to distract ourselves from the deepest questions of human existence. We can fill our lives with entertainment, careers, relationships, politics, technology, and endless information. We can become extraordinarily busy while never asking whether we are actually becoming holy. Augustine reminds us that the human heart was made for something greater. His most famous line from the Confessions captures the reality: our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

That restlessness is not necessarily our enemy. It can be an invitation. The dissatisfaction we feel with lesser things may be evidence that we were created for something greater than those things can provide. Augustine teaches us not to silence that restlessness with distractions but to allow it to lead us toward God.

St. Augustine of Canterbury: Give the Faith Away

The second Augustine lived in a very different world.

Around A.D. 596, Pope St. Gregory the Great sent Augustine and a group of monks from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Augustine eventually became the first Archbishop of Canterbury and died around 604.

Imagine the courage that required. Augustine was not entering a society where Christianity was already familiar. He was entering a pagan culture with its own customs, traditions, rulers, and religious practices. He and his companions had to learn how to communicate the Gospel to people who did not yet share their worldview.

The mission reminds us of something that can be easy for Catholics to forget: the Faith is meant to be shared. We can become so focused on our own spiritual lives that we forget the people around us who may never encounter the Gospel unless we bring it to them. A Catholic family, workplace, neighborhood, parish, or friendship can become a missionary territory. Augustine of Canterbury did not wait for England to become interested in Christianity. He went to England because he was invested in their salvation.

Most of us will never cross a sea to establish a new archdiocese. But we are constantly being given smaller missionary opportunities. We can invite someone to Mass. We can explain why we believe. We can give a Catholic book to a friend. We can answer a child’s question about God. We can simply live our faith visibly and joyfully. Evangelization does not always require a microphone. Sometimes it requires a conversation.

Two Augustines for the Modern Catholic

The two saints therefore give us two complementary lessons.

St. Augustine of Hippo teaches us to look inward and ask whether our hearts are truly resting in God. St. Augustine of Canterbury teaches us to look outward and ask whether we are helping anyone else find that same rest. One spent years searching for the truth. The other spent years proclaiming the truth he had received. Both remind us that Catholicism is not merely a collection of ideas that we happen to believe. It is a relationship with God that transforms the whole of life.

And perhaps that is why these two men remain so important. We live in a world filled with restless hearts. We also live in a world filled with people who desperately need someone to show them where true rest can be found. St. Augustine of Hippo tells us where to look. St. Augustine of Canterbury reminds us to go tell others.

Saints Augustine and Augustine, pray for us. 

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Imagine you are stuck in traffic. You are late, and there will be consequences. You cry out with a plea in your despair. Suddenly, your car is raised aloft by angels. You fly over all the traffic and land softly at your destination a few minutes early. This is not the Catholic Faith.

Imagine you are aging. You are frustrated by the wrinkles on your face, your varicose veins, your grey hair, your expanding waistline. You stand before the mirror wishing to be returned to your beautiful, youthful physique. You say a prayer. Suddenly, as if you are Cinderella or Dorian Gray, your wish is granted. This is not the Catholic Faith.

Imagine your neighbor, a seven-year-old boy stricken with cancer. He is dying. His hysterical parents call you to his hospital room. You touch his forehead. Instantly, the cancer disappears, and he leaps out of bed. This is not the Catholic Faith.

Now imagine that against colossal odds, akin to flipping heads on a quarter one-million times in a row, you have deliberately been willed into existence by a Being infinitely powerful. Somehow, He has a plan for you. This plan includes the highest honor any living being could receive: you have been made in His very image and loved into existence. This is the essence of who you are, of your true identity: you are a son or daughter of Him. We call Him God. This is the first principle of the Catholic Faith. We call it creation.

Imagine you are a sinner. Not only do you fall short of your vocation as son or daughter of God, but you do downright evil things. Granted, most are small transgressions committed out of weakness or emotion rather than malice. Yet you do not do the good you want; you do the very thing that you hate. You keep hurting people, and you hurt God whose plan you are messing up. You need help. Knowing your difficulties, God sends His own Son to do what you cannot: He assumes human nature, lives in first-century Palestine as the God-Man, and sacrifices Himself willingly on a cross so your sins are forgiven. You now have new life for God the Father thanks to God the Son. This is the second principle of the Catholic Faith. We call it redemption.

Imagine you are having a bad day at work. It’s Monday: you missed a deadline and incurred your boss’s wrath. Your colleague is giving you a hard time. You received a text from your son that he didn’t make the school soccer team. You get a call from a doctor: your father is being admitted to the hospital with severe chest pain. With your stomach in knots, you walk outside and sit on a bench. You place your head in your hands and ask God for help. After a minute, you recall that at Mass yesterday, you received Jesus Christ in Holy Communion. You felt at peace during that moment. You silently ask Jesus to be with you again and to bring you peace. Renewed, you walk back to your office. You apologize to your boss and ask to go be with your father. He is impressed at your apology and grants you leave with a promise to pray for him. You drive to the hospital anxious yet somehow confident that you are not enduring this moment alone. This is the third principle of the Catholic Faith. We call it sanctification.

Creation, redemption, and sanctification are the three pillars of the Catholic Faith. We have been created by God, redeemed from sin by God the Son, and sanctified—made holy—by God the Holy Spirit. We can look at these pillars in the abstract, as theologians often do in trying to understand these mysteries. We can also look at them in a personal way, for each pillar touches each of us as individuals who stand in a direct and filial relationship with God. When we build our lives on these three pillars, we receive a new way of living in the world.

Without these pillars, life can grow depressing very quickly. Consider the life of Richard, an atheist. He believes his existence is the product of a cosmic accident. He should not exist, therefore, nor can there be reasons for his life. Instinctually, he wonders about these questions, but he knows no answers are possible. He follows the law of the land to the best of his ability. But after following the world’s “live and let live” example, he is divorced; now he seldom sees his two children yet has to pay alimony for them. He has had multiple romantic partners in recent years but has not found love. Overcome by anger and without any recourse, he has started drinking and occasionally has used illegal drugs. This is the road of destruction.

The road of Catholic Faith offers so much more.

We can build upon these three pillars to develop our relationships as sons and daughters of God. Knowing that we are created by God, redeemed by Jesus Christ, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we seek union with this Triune God who has called us first. He wants us to be His children and friends. The more we pray, the more rigorously we keep His commandments, the more we receive the sacraments, the more zeal we will find for life. The three pillars of our Faith are not three magic pills to take away our problems. They are the three realities through which we face our problems with confidence, determination, and hope.

Photo by Sarah Sheedy on Unsplash

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus called Peter “the rock.”  This Sunday, He calls him “Satan.”  What happened?

Gospel (Read Mt. 16:21-27)

In the verses preceding this passage, Jesus and Peter had a remarkable exchange.  Peter identified Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God; Jesus announced that God had revealed this truth to him.  On that basis, Jesus changed his name and made him head of the Church He was to build.  He made a promise to preserve that Church, giving us some confidence that He wasn’t making a terrible mistake.  However, in this Sunday’s reading, that confidence gets tested.

We find that “Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly…be killed and…be raised.”  Peter, the newly appointed Rock of the Church, is horrified.  The English translation of the Greek doesn’t give the full force of Peter’s instant and violent reaction to Jesus’ prediction of the Cross.  In Greek, the verb translated as “took aside” is better rendered “took possession.”  The scene was likely one in which Peter pulled Jesus forcibly to himself, by His tunic, and literally stepped ahead of Him, blocking the road to Jerusalem.  

We have seen Peter’s impetuosity before in this Gospel, and we will see it again.  These verses demonstrate it graphically.  Peter listened to Jesus only long enough to hear “suffer greatly” and “be killed.”  However, when Jesus spoke these words, they described actions that were leading up to something else: the Resurrection.  Peter never got that far.  The thought of Jesus undergoing that kind of cruelty was too much for him:  “God forbid, Lord!  No such thing shall ever happen to You!”

We all understand this reaction, because it is so human.  Still, it disturbs us to see it in the man upon whom Jesus intends to build His Church.  Is this guy reliable?  If our confidence in him starts to wobble, Jesus’ next words might strike it to its foundation:  “Get behind Me, Satan.”  What’s going on here?

We must understand why Jesus harshly calls Peter by this dreaded name.  Clearly, the intention of Peter here is radically different from the temptation of Jesus by Satan, God’s enemy.  As we know from the forty days in the wilderness, Satan consciously and intentionally wanted to subvert God’s plan to save the world through the humility and obedience of His flesh-and-blood Son.  Earlier in St. Matthew’s Gospel, we see Satan “taking Jesus” aside, first to the pinnacle of the Temple (Mt. 4:5), then to “a very high mountain” (Mt. 4:8).  His goal was always to tempt Jesus to repudiate the path God had ordained for Him:  in His human weakness, through His own self-denial, He would rise victorious over both death and the devil.  After the third temptation, Jesus says to Satan, “Be gone!” (Mt. 4:10), foreshadowing the final removal of his presence and power among men.

Notice the difference in Jesus’ response to Peter:  “Get behind Me, Satan.”  This is a difference that makes all the difference.  Jesus here is referring to Peter as Satan in a metaphorical way, as an “adversary” (the literal meaning of “satan”) who, because he is thinking as a man does (we never believe suffering is God’s plan), temporarily becomes an obstacle to Jesus.  The command to “get behind Me” suggests that Peter’s problem was that he wanted to get ahead of Jesus.  Perhaps he thought that his appointment as head of the Church meant he could lead even Jesus!  The sharp rebuke returns him to reality.  Jesus leads; the disciples, even (and especially) Peter, follow.  

Does this lapse nullify Peter’s role in the Church?  Not at all.  If it had, surely Jesus would have issued a retraction.  It does demonstrate, however, that Peter still had much to learn about thinking “as God does.”  He and the other apostles would have to live through the Passion in order to understand how different God’s way is from the way of man.  In order to prepare them, Jesus speaks about the mystery of God’s way.

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel will save it.”  This is the lesson the apostles and all followers of Jesus would have to learn.  When we cling tightly to life and comfort in this world, we risk losing out on the real life God desires to give us.  Peter, out of misguided love, proposed exactly that.  Jesus had to correct him, out of true love, and call him back to allegiance to God’s way.  As the apostles would soon learn, the path to glory, for Jesus and for us, cannot avoid the Cross.  However, suffering is never the end of the story for those who are behind Jesus.

Possible response:  Lord Jesus, I need Your help to really believe that when I lose my life, I find it.

First Reading (Read Jer. 20:7-9)

We ought to know something about the prophet, Jeremiah, if we are to understand this reading and why it is read before our Gospel.  Here is a helpful description:

During Holy Week, the Church enters into a period devoted mainly to the commemoration of our Lord’s blessed Passion.  She has appointed the prophet Jeremiah to be read in this time, because in his message he is the most ardent preacher of penance to his people, a fearless and scathing denouncer of their sin.  In his life, he is the most faithful picture of the suffering Christ that exists in the Old Testament. (Pathways in Scripture, Damasus Winzen, pg. 235)

Jeremiah was called by God to warn Judah that punishment for their covenant faithlessness was inescapable.  As a result of his unpopular preaching, he underwent severe suffering.  In this reading, he brazenly cries out to the LORD that he had been “duped” into being a prophet, although he admits, “I let myself be duped.”  Here he is not describing deception or dishonesty by God; rather, he believes that when God called him as prophet, there was not exactly full disclosure about how much his obedience to that call would cost him personally. 

Jeremiah became an outcast among His people for telling them what God wanted them to know:  “All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me.”  As he continues to pour out his soul, he admits that he considered keeping God’s words to himself, saving himself from the suffering he was sure to incur:  “But then it comes like fire in my burning heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary of holding it in, I cannot endure it.”  Trying to avoid a prophet’s suffering would cause Jeremiah even more suffering.  In this, he foreshadows Jesus, particularly in the heat of His response to Peter’s proposed change of God’s plan.  A fire burned in His heart to do the mission He was sent to do.  He could not “endure” any deviation, even when suggested by a friend who loved Him.

Possible response:  Heavenly Father, I desire the courage of Jeremiah to follow Your call to me no matter the cost.

Psalm (Read Ps. 63:2-6, 8-9)

The psalmist describes his desire for God as a restless “thirst,” a longing that penetrates both his “flesh” and “soul.”  His most relevant observation, however, is that God’s kindness “is a greater good than life.”  Jesus says precisely that in the Gospel, as did Jeremiah in his agonized soul’s outpouring.  Both men understood, as the psalmist did, that life outside of doing God’s will is not real life.  Jeremiah knew he would explode if he didn’t obey God’s call.  Jesus knew He would fail in His work if He listened to Peter’s voice instead of God’s.  The psalmist expresses this knowledge in the poetry of his prayer: “My soul clings fast to You; Your right hand upholds me.”  

Even though the psalmist admits that longing for God in this life can make a man painfully uncomfortable, leaving him feel “like the earth, parched, lifeless, and without water,” still he gazes toward God in His sanctuary “to see Your power and Your glory.” Together with Jeremiah, Jesus, and the psalmist, we can focus our hearts in single-minded obedience to God, no matter the cost, in the words of our responsorial:  “My soul is thirsting for You, O LORD, my God.”

Possible response:  The psalm is, itself, a response to our other readings.  Read it again to prayerfully make it your own.

Second Reading (Read Rom. 12:1-2)

St. Paul summarizes all the readings for us in the exhortation of this epistle.  He translates into words we can understand the action we should take as a result of what we have read:  “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”  Jeremiah, the psalmist, and Jesus were willing to do this in their obedience, even though it led to suffering.  In the Gospel, Peter was an example of one who had not yet begun in earnest to resist being conformed to man’s way of thinking.  Eventually, of course, Peter would be “transformed by the renewal of [his] mind,” able to discern “what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”  We should never underestimate how much our minds are in need of this renewal!  

Let us listen carefully to St. Paul’s “urging,” and let us never forget that this surrendering of ourselves to God comes entirely “by the mercies of God.”  It is the loss of self that, mercifully, leads to true life.

Possible response:  Lord Jesus, my impulse for self-preservation and avoidance of suffering is very strong.  Please help me renew my mind so that I choose to offer, not withhold, myself in Your service.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

One of the most misunderstood virtues we are called to foster is meekness. In Matthew’s Gospel, the Lord invites us to a life of meekness when He teaches: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” Meekness is one of the virtues in short supply today, not because the Lord has stopped calling us to it, but because we don’t understand the call and the freedom it offers us.

Meekness is not a false form of humility or unhealthy self-loathing. It is directly linked to self-mastery of the passions, most especially, the ability to control our temper. Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene in Divine Intimacy explains: “Temperance makes man master of himself by controlling the passions of concupiscence; meekness makes him master of himself by controlling the impulses of anger.” Almost immediately we should recognize the lack of this virtue in our culture.

Social media has created an environment that leaves people angry and divided under the false guise of righteous anger. Anger is a passion that is very difficult to control. What may begin as righteous anger very quickly slips into resentment, bitterness, and wrath. This anger has divided families and led people to cut one another off. It gave rise to cancel culture and has left countless people trapped in algorithmic echo chambers that intentionally manipulate and distort.

The virtue of meekness is directly linked to peace of spirit and harmony in relationships. Fr. Gabriel explains further:

The great value of this virtue lies in the fact that it assures the soul of that inner peace which is so necessary in order to fulfill serenely all its duties toward God and toward the neighbor. The soul, when upset by resentments and anger, is unable to see things in their true light, to form unbiased judgments, to make wise decisions, or to keep words and actions within the limits of courtesy and kindness. A person’s manner becomes brusque, unrestrained, and often unjust, provoking displeasure in others; charity is cooled and harmonious relationships are disturbed. Unrestrained anger clouds the mind, preventing it from recognizing God’s will, and thus making the soul swerve from the line of duty to follow the impulses of the passions.

Meekness creates stillness and peace deep within the soul. It is from this place of peace that we can truly hear the Holy Spirit’s guidance. When we are overcome with anger our judgment becomes clouded, which makes it very difficult for us to hear the Holy Spirit. So often what passes for righteous anger these days is in fact sinful anger. The constant debates and battles online that spill over into everyday life and relationships are not grounded in true virtue. The bad fruit is evident by the constantly increasing division within our society.

The answer to this anger is to foster the virtue of meekness by God’s grace. There are intentional steps we can take to grow in meekness in the digital age. First, step back from the digital world and spend 30-60 minutes in prayer each day. If we have time to be on social media for hours on end or binge television, then we have time for prayer.

Second, if social media is a constant source of anger in your life, then you need to ask God if it’s time to cut it out. My husband and I deleted our social media accounts in 2020, and we have never regretted it.

Third, go to Confession regularly and confess sins of anger and any sins connected to the cause for anger in your life such as unforgiveness, control, gossip, resentment, being judgmental, and especially pride.

Fourth, we need to come to a deeper understanding that the Lord desires true peace for us. He flipped tables once, which was a tiny percentage in the grand scheme of His public ministry, and He did so with a perfect self-mastery of the passions that none of us possesses. He was able to correct the Pharisees and flip tables precisely because He did so completely at peace and free from sin. We aren’t Him. We need His graces to grow in meekness, which increases our self-mastery of anger in difficult situations. We need to remember that Christ desires peace within our souls not the constant turmoil of anger.

Rather than giving in constantly to movements of anger. We need to recognize how quickly this passion gets out of control and seek to temper it immediately before it takes over. Fr. Gabriel recommends:

In order to keep our heart free from the movements of anger, we should be prompt in restraining them as soon as they appear, because if we favor them, even a little, they will at once gain strength, and it will be much more difficult for us to overcome them. Constant fidelity in repressing every feeling of anger will gradually bring us to the enjoyment of the sweet fruit of meekness: “The meek shall inherit the land, and shall delight in abundance of peace (Psalm 36:11).”

True freedom comes from being master of our bodies and passions. This is the purpose of mortification. Mortifying angry impulses when they arise will eventually give way to a deeper freedom. This mortification is what will allow us to hear the Holy Spirit more clearly. Our judgment will no longer be clouded by the turbulent storms of anger.

We should be discerning what areas of our life open us up to anger and repent with each new fall. If we are truly honest with ourselves, we will see how social media and the 24/7 news cycle are designed to keep us in a constant state of anger and agitation. When we take a break or delete social media, we find our lives become more peaceful. This tells us the bad fruits of constant digital communication. We must step into the school of silence where we can encounter Christ. We must ask Him to help us foster a spirit of meekness that we may truly come to know that His burden is light.

Let us pray with Venerable Leo DuPont:

O Jesus, meekest Lamb, who being cursed did not curse, who suffering injuries did not threaten, who receiving the greatest contempt, answered with divine meekness or preserved an admirable silence, help me to follow Your example, to repress my anger, to embrace meekness, and armed with patience, to suffer willingly any labor that I may come to enjoy eternal repose with You.

Editor’s Note: For more on understanding the virtue of meekness, check out Fr. Carney’s book, The Forgotten Virtue: Why Meekness May Be the Secret Weapon in the Spiritual Life, available from Sophia Institute Press this October.

Photo by Dorsaf sayeh on Unsplash

A few years ago, while teaching a class on bioethics and Christian anthropology, I explained the Catholic Church’s teaching on In Vitro Fertilization, “IVF” (literally “Fertilization in glass”). I discussed the dignity of human procreation, the meaning of the marital act, and the moral concerns surrounding the creation of human embryos in the laboratory.

As soon as I finished, a young woman in the classroom raised her hand. “Father,” she said quietly, “I’m an IVF baby.” The room became completely silent.

In that moment, the question was no longer abstract, merely theoretical, or bioethical. It was personal, human, immediate. It revealed the pastoral challenge facing the Church today.

How do we speak the truth about IVF while also affirming, clearly and lovingly, the dignity of the child conceived through it? How do we address the morality of reproductive technologies in a world where many good and sincere people have used them, often after years of infertility, suffering, disappointment, and heartbreak?

These are no longer rare questions. They are becoming ordinary pastoral realities in classrooms, parishes, friendships, and families. The Church must therefore do two things at once, i.e. teach the truth clearly and love persons deeply.

This distinction is essential. To say that IVF is morally wrong is not to say that the child conceived through IVF is somehow wrong. The child is not the procedure. The child is not the decision. The child is not the sin. Every child conceived through IVF is a human person loved by God, possessing the same dignity, vocation, and eternal destiny as every other human being.

This article is written especially with such persons in mind: adults who have discovered that they were conceived through IVF, children whose parents used IVF without understanding the Church’s teaching, and families who may now feel confusion, grief, or even guilt. The Church’s teaching must never be heard as a rejection of their existence. It is precisely because the child is so good, so sacred, and so worthy of reverence that the Church insists that the means of conception must also respect the dignity of the person.

What IVF Is—and Why the Church Objects

In vitro fertilization is a process in which human conception occurs outside the body, usually in a laboratory setting. Typically, multiple eggs are harvested from the woman after hormonal stimulation, fertilized with sperm in a petri dish, and then several embryos are “created.” Some embryos are implanted; others are frozen indefinitely, discarded, or used for experimentation. The problem is that these embryos are already human beings at the earliest stage of life.

The Church’s objection to IVF is often misunderstood. Many assume the Church opposes IVF because she opposes infertile couples having children or because she somehow rejects the dignity of children conceived this way. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Church begins precisely with the dignity of the child. As Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington, VA, has emphasized in a letter on this specific issue, every child—regardless of the circumstances of conception—possesses infinite dignity because every human life is created in the image and likeness of God. The child is always a gift, never a mistake, never a “problem,” and never reducible to the moral failures or decisions of adults.

The moral concern lies not with the child, but with the means, Fr. Shenan Boquet, President of Human Life International, stresses in a recent podcast. Catholic teaching insists that human life should arise from the loving marital embrace of husband and wife, where the unitive and procreative meanings of sexuality remain joined together. IVF separates conception from the marital act and transfers the origin of human life into a technological process of production and selection.

This is why the Church repeatedly returns to the phrase from the Creed describing Christ Himself: “begotten, not made.” Human beings are meant to be begotten, not manufactured. The distinction is not sentimental. It is profoundly anthropological. A child is not a product to be engineered, selected, graded, frozen, or discarded. A child is a person received as gift.

As Dr. Brian Clowes and Marisa Cantu have carefully explained, IVF often involves practices that many couples never fully understand when they begin treatment. These include the routine creation of excess embryos, embryonic destruction, embryo freezing, selective implantation, selective reduction, and the treatment of embryonic life according to standards of viability or desirability.

Many couples enter IVF motivated not by selfishness, but by deep suffering and a sincere desire for children. The Church recognizes this suffering with compassion. Infertility can be emotionally devastating and spiritually painful. Yet compassion cannot mean ignoring the moral reality of the procedures themselves.

As Fr. Boquet explains, the desire for a child is good and holy—but even good desires do not justify every possible means of achieving them. The modern world increasingly tempts us to believe that technological ability automatically creates moral permission. If something can be done, we assume it should be done, but Christian anthropology insists that love must remain ordered to truth.

“Knowledge is power,” we are reminded by Francis Bacon. In itself, this is not entirely false. Human knowledge can serve life, heal disease, and relieve suffering. But when knowledge is detached from wisdom, power is detached from love. Medicine then no longer serves the person; technique begins to govern the person. In the case of IVF, the danger is especially grave because the one subjected to the technological process is not merely tissue, disease, or malfunction, but a new human being at the very beginning of life.

This is why the Church’s critique of IVF is not a rejection of science, nor a rejection of infertile couples, nor a rejection of children conceived through IVF. It is a defense of the truth that the child is not a product of technique, but a person to be received as a gift through the personal communion of husband and wife. Not every technically possible act respects the dignity of the human person.

The Forgotten Victims of IVF

One of the most tragic realities surrounding IVF is how often the conversation ignores the countless embryonic lives lost in the process. Millions of embryos around the world now remain frozen in storage facilities. Others have been discarded, selectively destroyed, or used for experimentation.

These are not “potential lives.” They are human beings at the earliest stages of development. The Church’s concern is therefore not merely theoretical or symbolic. It is deeply concrete. IVF frequently transforms human generation into a process governed by efficiency, quality control, and technological management.

This is why many Catholic ethicists see IVF as connected to broader cultural tendencies that eventually lead toward eugenics and transhumanism. Once human life becomes a project of production and optimization, the logic of selection inevitably follows.

Who is implanted? Who is discarded? Who is considered healthy enough? Who is considered desirable enough? These are not futuristic questions anymore. They are already here.

The Pastoral Challenge: “I’m an IVF Baby”

And yet we return to the classroom. “I’m an IVF baby.” What should a priest, teacher, parent, or friend say in that moment?

First, we must say clearly and immediately: You are loved by God. Your life has dignity. Your existence is good. The Church does not divide humanity into “worthy” and “unworthy” persons based on how they were conceived. Human dignity does not depend upon the moral perfection of one’s parents.

Every human life is willed by God. This distinction is absolutely essential pastorally. Too many people hear criticism of IVF as criticism of themselves. That is not the Church’s teaching. The child is never the sin. The child is never the problem. The child is always good.

In fact, one of the greatest pastoral mistakes Catholics can make is speaking about IVF in a way that unintentionally wounds children or adults conceived through it. The Church condemns no one’s existence. The Church proclaims the dignity of every human person without exception.

At the same time, genuine love requires honesty. If a friend or family member chooses IVF, Catholics should not respond with cruelty, self-righteousness, or constant moral haranguing, but neither should they pretend the moral questions do not exist.

As Fr. Boquet wisely observed, honesty within relationships does not mean hostility. Families already navigate difficult moral disagreements all the time. One can lovingly and calmly maintain that something was morally wrong without rejecting the persons involved.

That requires prudence, patience, and charity. Often the best pastoral approach is gradual. First listen compassionately to the suffering of infertility. Acknowledge the longing for children. Affirm the goodness of marriage and family. Then gently explain why the Church believes the means matter as much as the end.

Many people have never heard the Church’s actual reasoning. They assume the Church is merely “against science” or indifferent to suffering. In reality, the Church is defending something profoundly human, i.e. that children should never become products of technological manufacture.

A Society in Need of Compassion and Truth

We now live in a world where reproductive technologies are becoming normalized so quickly that many people never stop to ask deeper anthropological questions. But the Church must continue asking them. What does it mean to receive a child as gift rather than produce a child as project? What happens when human generation becomes increasingly technological? What vision of the human person are we teaching future generations?

At the same time, Catholics must remember that many people carrying wounds related to infertility, IVF, frozen embryos, or complicated family histories are sitting quietly in our pews, classrooms, and homes. They do not first need condemnation. They need truth spoken with compassion.

The Church’s task is therefore both moral and pastoral: to defend the dignity of human procreation while never forgetting the dignity of the human persons standing before us. This includes the young woman in the classroom, the grandchild conceived through IVF, the couple carrying years of sorrow, and every human life, always and without exception.

Christianity begins not with rejection, but with the proclamation that every person is loved into existence by God. No human being is reducible to the circumstances of his or her conception. The child conceived through IVF is not a problem to be explained away, but a person to be loved, welcomed, and reverenced.

Precisely for that reason, the Church must continue to say both things together: the child is always good, and the means by which a child is conceived must also respect the dignity of the child. Only by holding together truth and mercy can the Church speak faithfully to the wounded, confused, and beloved people standing before her.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a CE original series on Bioethics & Culture by Fr. Francesco Giordano, tackling the challenging moral issues of our day.

Photo by Hu Chen on Unsplash