Author: Fr. Peter Kavanaugh

“Prayer begins at the moment when, instead of thinking of a remote God, ‘He’, ‘The Almighty’, and so forth, one can think in terms of ‘Thou,’ when it is no longer a relationship in the third person but in the first and second persons’” (Metropolitan Anthony Bloom).

What do you think of the Messiah? Christ asked this question to the Pharisees. How would you answer? Is the Messiah an idea to you? Is he an aloof deity in the clouds, a clockmaker, who gets the universe going and sits back to watch? Is he a personal acquaintance, perhaps your most intimate companion? Where do you stand in your relationship with Christ? I hope this question keeps you up at night.

Continue reading “My Lord, My God”

We are called to be in the world, but not of the world. This implies that Christians actually live differently, think differently, and look differently. It also implies that the world will not like the way we are different. A true Christian lifestyle is a scandal to the world. So how should we respond when people around us think we are crazy? Just do the right thing.

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He bound two nails together to make a cross for his altar. He used a piece of string for a stole, and a bucket for a chalice. Each starving prisoner hid a crumb of bread and gave it to Elder Arsenie to be consecrated. In this way, the Orthodox saint offered up daily Mass during his imprisonment. Each time the soldiers caught him, they locked him in a freezer. One, two, or three days passed, they released him, he went back to praying Mass, they locked him in the freezer again, and the pattern continued years on end. Can we value the Eucharist with the same fervor and dedication?

Continue reading “To Touch God’s Body”

“Smash the television set, turn out the lights, build a fire in the fireplace, move the family into the living room, put a pot on to boil some tea and toddy and have an experiment in merriment…The hearth, like good soil, does its work invisibly, in secret, and slowly. After a long time beneath the earth of a quiet family life, green shoots of vigorous poverty appear; you have become, in a small way, poor” (John Senior).

Simplicity and Focus. So many of our problems today stem from one thing: our priorities are jumbled up. Christ shows us another life, a happy life, in which all of life becomes a quiet focus on the Kingdom.

Continue reading “Smashing Our Idols”

“We need each one of us and the help of one another more than one hand needs the other” (St. Basil the Great).

Christian faith is as social as it is internal. The minute faith becomes private, it has stopped being Christian. We are here to love God and love our neighbor, simultaneously, and it always starts in parish life.

Continue reading “The Church in an Era of Social Isolation”

“Taste and see that the lord is good” (Psalm 34:8).

Complete stillness. The priest muttered inaudible prayers at the altar. Incense billowed upwards, lit up in a haze around the few twinkling candles. Time stood still, while stone walls reverberated with soft Gregorian melodies. The young man was transfixed, kneeling through his first Mass at the Grande Chartreuse cloister in Southeastern France.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has no effect in a soul that is barren.

Continue reading “Taste and See”

“I felt there was no happier person on earth than I, and I doubted if there could be greater and fuller happiness in the kingdom of heaven. The whole outside world also seemed to me full of charm and delight. Everything drew me to love and thank God: people, trees, plants and animals. I saw them all as my kinfolk; I found in all of them the magic of the name of Jesus” (The Way of the Pilgrim).

If we could only recognize the things that make for peace. A soul filled up with Christ will be peaceful in every situation. Eyes open to reality find beauty everywhere. A heart that is pure can taste the kingdom, smell the kingdom, delight in the kingdom in each and every moment.

Continue reading “An Enchanted World”

“The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself” (Proverbs 11:25).

She was a constant pain in the neck. As a young girl, St. Brigid, seized every opportunity to feed the poor. Everytime her parents turned around, the cabinets were emptied. Milk, butter, porkchops, all of it passed through her hands to every passing beggar. Eventually, her father had enough. It was time for this girl to get married. He drove her away to the King of Leinster. Prospects looked good and the two men negotiated a dowry. Meanwhile, Brigid waited behind in the chariot when a leper passed by. She had neither food nor money, but looked down and, sure enough, her father had left his sword and scabbard. “Take these,” she told the leper, “sell them and you can by food for months.” Upon returning, the father was furious, and the king thought to himself, ‘This woman will be the ruin of my household.’ So she got her wish. Brigid was sent off to a nunnery.

Continue reading “A Generous Heart”

A golden dusk looms over the wheat field in rural France. Two peasants have set aside their tools and a basket of potatoes. They stand bowed, praying an Ave Maria, and the world around them is lit up. The whole landscape is charged, enchanted by a presence of glory. This painting is called The Angelus, by J.F. Millet, 1859. Art shows us the essence of things, and in this artwork in particular, we discover the essence of Christianity. A heart open to God is open to God’s beauty, and that beauty overflows into our life.

Continue reading “God in Beauty”

He saw, he fled, he built. Three actions sum up St. Benedict’s legacy. From the very start, our parish dedicated itself to a vision exemplified by St. Benedict, and we must always return to that vision. We are here to be a counterculture. We are here to recognize the problems in our culture, to detach from them, and to pour sweat and blood in building Kingdom culture.

Continue reading “Forsake, Pursue, Rejoice”