We can reflect in front of a portrait upon the mask and the face. We are all often forced to wear a mask because we are afraid that our real face can be seen without protection, that face which is the mirror of the soul. Meditating in front of the paintings is a healthy exercise, I would say, almost spiritual.
Through the Beatitudes, Jesus offers humanity the possibility to tap into the spiritual power of suffering by enlightening the darkness of the present with the light coming from God’s future.
The Catholic Church dedicates a special devotion for each month of the year. The month of January was dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus. For this month of February, the Church dedicates it to the Holy Family.
Although mystical life has often been almost exclusively connected with extraordinary supernatural phenomena, in reality it is similar to spiritual/moral life, to a good Christian life, which begins with the presence of God’s grace (and the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity) in the soul and develops through the experiential realization of that loving presence.
The depth of the human heart is a place full of unknown monsters and highly unpredictable. In spite of the advancement of psychology, the human heart and especially the unconscious, remain largely a mystery. It takes courage to venture into that realm, where our wounds and fragilities lie.
To get closer to the Hindus, Father João de Brito started to walk with a bamboo staff, wore a reddish robe and put on wooden sandals. He tried to live like a Hindu, even in his behavior and eating habits. But without, however, failing to preach the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, São João de Brito won many hearts. These embraced faith in Christ with firmness and renewal of heart.
This sacrament is unique in that the minister is not a deacon, or a priest, or a bishop, or even the Pope! The priest or deacon who officiates is only a witness. In Matrimony, man and woman are both the subjects (the ones who receive) and the ministers (the ones who carry out or execute) of the sacrament.
“The sacrament of Matrimony establishes a perpetual and exclusive bond between the spouses. God himself seals the consent of the spouses. Therefore, a marriage which is ratified and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved” (CCCC 346).
THERE’S NONE LIKE HIM. Jesus is truly one of a kind. He is the only man, the only founder of a religion, who could claim that people had been talking about his coming centuries before he was born.
Of the mystical signs evident in the life of St Thomas Aquinas, Friar Kennedy records that on one occasion, at Naples in 1273, after he had completed his treatise on the Eucharist, three of the brethren saw him lifted in ecstasy, and they heard a voice proceeding from the crucifix on the altar, saying “Thou hast written well of me, Thomas; what reward wilt thou have?” Thomas replied, “None other than Thyself, Lord.”
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