Carmelite poet Jessica Powers writes, "O Wisdom, Adonai, Root of Jesse / and sign by which the mouths of kings are dumb, / O Key, O Orient, King and Cornerstone, / O our Emmanuel, come..."
Continue reading →
Advent III — Splendor of Carmel
Well known Carmelite poet Jessica Powers explains how the image of Our Lady as a “ little light cloud rising / From Orient waters cleft by prophecy” inspires this prayer: “Cloud, encompass God and me.”
Continue reading →
Quote of the day, 6 December: St. Edith Stein
When St. Edith Stein was a faculty lecturer in Münster, she celebrated St. Nicholas Day with her students in December 1932. One student recalled, “we sang Advent songs, and she was just like one of us.”
Continue reading →
Quote of the day, 5 December: Silvio José Báez, o.c.d.
In this Advent season, Bishop Silvio José Báez, o.c.d. urges us to adopt the prophetic rebelliousness of St. John the Baptist so that we don’t resign ourselves to interior mediocrity or injustice in the world around us.
Continue reading →
St. John of the Cross Novena 2022: Introduction
Father Quang D. Tran, S.J. leads our meditations this year on the theme of the night that guides our footsteps better than light and is brighter than the dawn: the night that gives sight.
Continue reading →
Advent II — Justice with integrity
In the Mass for the Second Sunday of Advent, we hear the prophet Isaiah speak of justice meted out with integrity. St John of the Cross asks, “what will your all-powerful justice do with the righteous and the sinner?”
Continue reading →
Quote of the day, 3 December: St. John of the Cross
The eloquent poetry of St John of the Cross sets the stage for our Advent reflection as we read his Romance II, “In that boundless love, proceeding from the Father and the Son, words to Him the Father utter'd comprehensible by none.”
Continue reading →
Quote of the day, 1 December: St. Edith Stein
St. Edith Stein sends greetings on this date in 1934 to her old friend and recent Jewish convert, Ruth Kantorowicz; she offers this advice: let nothing distract you “from living in the intense thought of the Advent liturgy.”
Continue reading →
Quote of the day, 27 November: St. Teresa of Avila
St. Teresa teaches us that to watch expectantly for the One who is to come is to be attentive to the presence of the One who is already there. Her catechesis on prayer provides keys to help us be attentive.
Continue reading →
Advent I — Let us go up
In "The Spiritual Canticle," St John of the Cross writes, “let us go forth to behold ourselves in your beauty to the mountain and to the hill,” which is to “knowledge in the divine Word, who in his height is signified here by the mountain.” Here we share excerpts from the Saint's powerful commentary.
Continue reading →
Advent IV, 2021 — Blessed
When I read in the Gospel “that Mary went in haste to the hill country of Judea” to perform her loving service for her cousin Elizabeth, I imagine her passing by so beautiful, so calm and so majestic
Advent III, 2021 — Joy
When one loves, everything is joy. The cross doesn't weigh down.
Quote of the day, 9 December: Jessica Powers
Here is a small bird cast as John the Baptist who from my treetops is inspired to say: I come from heaven to prepare the way.
Quote of the day, 6 December: Silvio José Báez, O.C.D.
The season of Advent is a favorable time to go to the desert, and God always arrives where there is a heart willing to listen to him.
Quote of the day, 5 December: St. Edith Stein
The greatest figures of prophecy and sanctity step forth out of the darkest night. [...] Certainly, the decisive turning points in world history are substantially co-determined by souls whom no history book ever mentions.
Advent II, 2021 — Vision
And if I rejoice, Lord, in the hope of seeing you, yet seeing I can lose you doubles my sorrow. Living in such fear and hoping as I hope, I die because I do not die.
Quote of the day, 3 December: St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
The holy time of Advent is here; it seems to me that it is very especially the season of interior souls; in the silence of prayer, let us listen to Him.
Quote of the day, 1 December: Jessica Powers
Come is the love song of our race and Come our basic word of individual wooing. It lifts audacious arms of lowliness to majesty's most amiable undoing, to Godhood fleshed and cradled and made least.
Recent comments