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I am hosting this pray along of a novena of novenas for the protection of our priests and deacons, as well as the conversion of our enemies--not only for our sake, but the sake of their souls. Please pray along with me and share this with your friends and family, our clergy needs our prayers and petitions more than they ever have! Please visit Veils and Vocations for more information and the novena prayers. God bless.

I'm a half-century old and have been a practicing Catholic most of those years. And yet, until yesterday, I had never visited a shrine.  I never really understood the point. As a Christian, I believe that Mystery entered human history and settled among us. As a result, Christ is our constant companion. He is with us in every moment, in the circumstances of every person we encounter. So what's the point, my thinking went, of traveling many miles to a shrine of people who lived out their destinies with an eye on the One who made them? Keep Reading...

From The Gospel of John (2003). Directed by Philip Saville. Jesus played by Henry Ian Cusick; narrator, Christopher Plummer. Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) At the Procession of Palms either of these gospels may be used: Mark 11:1-10 or John 12:12-16. Gospel for Procession of Palms Mark 11:1-10 (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) When they were approaching Jerusalem, in sight of Bethphage and Bethany, close by the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, 'Go off to the village facing you, and as soon as you enter it you will find a tethered colt that no one has yet ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone says to you, "What are you doing?" say, "The Master needs it and will send it back here directly." They went off and found a colt tethered near a door in the open street. As they untied it, some men standing ther...

Nancy Bilyeau's debut novel The Crown takes readers on an odyssey through the England of Henry VIII during the bloody period of the dissolution of the monasteries as seen from the point of view of a young Dominican novice. There are many aspects of this extraordinary novel that contemporary Catholics will find that they can relate to, namely the confusion in the Church and the compromises of many of her members to political persecution and social expediency, as well as the heroic stand taken by those with the courage to speak truth to power. In Tudor England, speaking truth to power, or even silently trying to follow one's conscience, often meant dying a hideous death. Young Joanna Stafford finds that in those intense times there is no such thing as spiritual mediocrity; either she must take the high road or face perdition. Joanna is not one to settle for less than heroism anyway, having entered a strict Dominican monastery where she looked forward to an auste...

The graves of martyrs in front of the  Pietá in Regina Martyrum (Queen of Martyrs) Church near Plotenzee Prison, Berlin, where many were executed by the Nazis, including   Fr Alfred Delp SJ . Today is the 44th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood in St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, my native city. Three days ago I posted about   Fr Alfred Delp SJ , martyred by the Nazis on 2 February 1945. While doing research for that I came across a sermon he gave on the Sacrament of Holy Orders, one of a series on the Seven Sacraments in Munich in the autumn of 1941. I found it on the   website of The Ignatius Press . From the website of The Ignatius Press Here is the text of the sermon with some parts   highlighted  and   [comments]   added. Holy Orders | by Fr. Alfred Delp, S.J. | Preached in Munich, Autumn 1941 "Let the grace that is in you through the laying on of hands be rekindled." (2 Timothy 1:8) ...First: In that great moment of our l...

Fr Alfred Delp SJ, 5 September 1907 - 2 February 1945 Stamp issued in West Germany 1964 I used to own a copy of The Prison Meditations of Alfred Delp SJ but lost it somewhere along the way while being transferred from one place to another. Jenny Howell, of the Center for Christian Ethics, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, writes her reflections on these writings here . She uses the title under which Father Delp's writings have been more recently published by Ignatius Press, Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings .  I was born in Ireland on Hitler's birthday in 1943, just two years before World War II ended. Though independent Ireland wasn't involved directly in that conflict I have often wondered how the profoundly anti-Christian and anti-human Nazism took hold in a country that produced so many great saints and creators of beauty such as Beethoven, led by a man from the country that gave birth to Haydn and Mozart. (I once met a man in rural Kentucky wh...

  El Greco, Altarpiece , 1597-99  Readings   (New American Bible, used in the Philippines and the USA) Gospel John 6:51-58 (Jerusalem Bible, used in Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, Scotland) Jesus said to the Jews: ‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’ Then the Jews started arguing with one another: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ they said. Jesus replied: ‘I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him. As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever ...