There is an incredibly powerful prayer practice in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola called the Prayer of Examen. While the Ignatian examen has been interpreted and applied in various ways, I have found that looking closely at the origin of the practice and developing my own variation of the examen has had a tremendous effect…
Prayer
Spiritual Exercise: Identify the Resistance
I recently read a book that had a powerful impact on me as a writer, entrepreneur, and Christian. It is called The War of Art, which is a play on words from the classic Art of War. It was written by Steven Pressfield, the popular author of Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, and Killing…
The Meaning of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
I wonder how many Catholics upon seeing the “Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus” on the calendar will have any idea what it means. I had spent years studying theology and never understood its meaning or purpose. In fact, about a year ago I sat in on a meeting at work (Ave Maria…
If Christ is Not Present in the Eucharist. . .
. . . then is he present in the world at all? We say that God is present in the world. We see him in the beauty of the sunset and the loving acts of a friend. We see him in the Word of God when we read the Scriptures. We see him in our…
An Ambulance Prayer
Teachers can learn a lot from their students. When I was a first-year teacher in Pensacola, Florida–a city entrenched in the Bible Belt–I learned a lot about prayer from my middle schoolers often at the most unexpected times. They were taking a test the first time I saw it happen. We were fifteen minutes into…
