Behold, All Ye Who Pass By

“They will look on him whom they have pierced.” ( Zech. 12:10) Behold. Turn not your eyes away. Avert not your gaze. Cast not down your face. With the eyes of your body and the eyes of your heart, look … Continue reading

Just Keep Your Eyes on Me

By your counsel you will guide me,and then you will lead me to glory.What else have I in heaven but you?Apart from you, I want nothing on earth. (Psalm 73:24-25) The rails clacked and the din of passengers subsided to … Continue reading

The Liturgy as Formation

Oftentimes friends and family ask me, “Well, how long until you become a priest?” I usually respond with a condensed version of our lengthy and seemingly complicated formation program. More questions ensue, and I continue to explain to them the … Continue reading

What Love Looks Like

To read about the life of a saint is to glimpse a world illuminated by a hidden light. The saint’s actions seem wild yet effective, spontaneous yet motivated by deep insight. As a dog responds to a whistle pitched far … Continue reading

Preferring the Light

Are you happy? Or, at least, happier? We’ve hit the halfway point of Lent—three weeks down, three weeks to go. That’s three weeks without whatever little pleasures we sacrificed for this penitential season. Three weeks deprived of coffee, or soda, … Continue reading

Youth, Beauty, and Promise

A few years ago, my father “was a young man, strong, virile, athletic, handsome, chaste, and disciplined; the kind of man one sees sometimes shepherding sheep, or piloting a plane, or working at a carpenter’s bench.” Even today, he is … Continue reading

Priorities

Before I entered the Order, I had a chocolate labrador retriever, whose full name was “Abbot the Dog.” Though a generally well-behaved dog, Abbot once gnawed to pieces my iPhone 3G. (Don’t laugh at its obsolescence—at the time it was … Continue reading

The Heart of Penance

“Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). These words rang out in Galilee when our Lord started his public preaching, and they were heard worldwide last week on Ash Wednesday. Repentance is a definitive turning away from sin, but … Continue reading

Lent is for Lovers

If you don’t give it up for love, you won’t give it up for long. Growing up in New England—the birthplace of Dunkin Donuts—Dunkin coffee was like mother’s milk to me. Instead of milk, though, I took mine with cream … Continue reading

Chocolate and Ashes

Can you read my mind and know what I am thinking? You probably cannot without my help. Nevertheless, what others think, especially those with whom we live, work, or love, matters to us. Often we pick up a person’s general … Continue reading

Gaze of Love

We’ve all heard that line. “Did you see the way he looked at you?” This perhaps over-romantic line in films is a common starting point for a story about love. But while it might be a cheesy question posed by … Continue reading

Vapid Vice and Vivacious Virtue

A windswept forest on a cloud-covered night creaks, cracks, and moans, sending chills up and down the spine. Trees waving and wagging on their upward path have elbowed for the brightest spot in the sun. They’re intertwined. When the wind … Continue reading

Review: In Honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Tota pulchra es, Maria. Et macula originalis non est in Te.Thou art all beautiful, Mary. And the original stain is not in Thee. Mary is beautiful because God loves her. In love, God her Father created her. In love, God … Continue reading

Why Saint Nicholas Matters

In our shared human experience, we frequently find ourselves carrying other people’s burdens, seeking, if we can, to alleviate them, with others doing the same for us. This is mercy. By showing mercy, we take another’s misery and seek to … Continue reading

Loving Enemies

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ commands us, “Love your enemies” (Mt 5:44). I’m sure I’m not alone among Christians who struggle with this commandment, not only to do it but to understand it.  It seems strange, even … Continue reading

How to Talk About Homosexuality

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on August 6, 2014. Fr. Gabriel Torretta was ordained a priest in 2015 and now serves as a parochial vicar. How do we talk about homosexuality? Christians are caught on the horns of … Continue reading

The True Axis of the Earth

In C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, dead souls ascend by bus from a hellish suburbia to the edge of heaven. For the dead souls, everything in this new land overwhelms. The leaves are heavy, the light blinding, even the … Continue reading

At the Hedge

The Word of God, solitary, magnificent amid the vicissitudes of human history, turns to me, his face shining from his vision of the Father, and speaks to me. As in all human love, only more so, I am exposed; I … Continue reading

Hearts Like His

You’re always hurt most by those closest to you. The sharpest knives are wielded by family, religious brothers, or intimate friends, for they have a particular access to our hearts that is born of the strength of the bond between … Continue reading

The Look of Divine Love

“It is godlike to love the being of someone” (Gilead, Marilynne Robinson). In this short sentence from her novel Gilead, the author, Marilynne Robinson, expresses the deep, unflinching love of a father for his son. The Gospel of Luke provides … Continue reading

In the Fisherman’s Net

Not ours the wounds, the bloodied flesh, of those fire-tested ancient souls;Theirs the bones for grinding lion’s teeth to gnaw to living breadOr the blood to spell their credo, a sanguine testament witnessed boldlyAs fisherman’s inverted across the sea from … Continue reading

By His Wounds

Jesus Christ did not die to save humanity. That is, not some abstract notion of it. Our Lord’s head was pierced with a crown of thorns. His back was scourged. His face was spit on. His clothes were torn off … Continue reading

Unbeautiful Savior

At first glance, I was viscerally repulsed by the above painting. It was the eyes in particular, and the mouth, both of the same shade of red. Eyes shouldn’t be that red. It was hideous. The feeling of revulsion reminded … Continue reading

Pixie Dust and Ash Wednesday

The Disney film adaption of Peter Pan ends (unsurprisingly) happily-ever-after. Gathered before the nursery window in a loving embrace, the Darling family fondly watches Peter and Tinkerbell fly their golden, pixie-enchanted ship through the moonlit clouds to Neverland. In the … Continue reading

Flash of Fire in the Fog

Editor’s note: This is the seventh post in a series commenting on the first words of Christ as presented in the Gospels. What do you seek? … Come and see. (Jn 1:38-39) At the very core of our being, there … Continue reading