St Anthony’s humility accompanied his popularity through the ages. Many of us pray to him when we lose things and we may even call him “Doctor of the Church” and not know why. What many do not know is that Anthony had a licence to teach licentia docendi. St Francis,...

St Francis of Assisi is well known for his love of poverty, but he was not born into poverty. In fact, he was born into wealth and privilege, and once dreamt of glory on the battlefield. He thought these were the things that would bring him happiness.  It was not...

Caught up in life and its vicissitudes, we can begin to believe the great myth of human ego that this earthly life lasts forever and then, when Sister Death draws near to us, we are lost in panic, lost in pain. We are simply lost, and we hold out against her, not...

St Paul almost seems to be taunting death with these two questions in his first letter to the Corinthians. And I am wondering how many of us have the audacity to do that.  The culture of death seems to be around us where the voiceless have no right to life and...

In particular, I notice that Clare lives and suggests discernment as a path of purification: purification of the gaze, of the heart, and of the will.  Purification of the gaze  The starting point is the reality in which we find ourselves; the reality that “we...

St Clare of Assisi The process of discernment is directed by the word of God in order to live in obedience to Him; it is aimed at dwelling within history in an evangelical way, following the footsteps of Jesus so that the kingdom of God may grow in the world. Our...

Francis life is that of his meeting with Sultan al- Malik al-Kāmil in 1219. It was the time of the Fifth Crusade, and since Francis opposed all killing, he sought the blessing of the Cardinal, who was chaplain to the Crusader forces, to go and preach the Gospel to the...