Oblate Formation 
Posts concerning Oblate and Novice formation. These include articles which are also applicable to most Christians, whether Oblate or not. Additional articles on instruction of various parts of the Rule can be found under that category.
Hey Future Husband, I’m A Sinner. How Are You?
“Look at all these sinners.” My friend sent me that text earlier today as I stood in line for confession, attached was a picture he took of me standing in the line across from him waiting to enter the confessional. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the text. It’s true, I am a… Read More ›
Summer Driving Lessons
It’s that time of year when folks are driving a lot and so perhaps it’s appropriate to think in terms of driving cars. Are there spiritual lessons? Life is like a trip, like a road. That’s one lesson. At times it can be a winding one, it can be straight and tedious, it can be… Read More ›
Vacation: A Time to get closer to God and fellowman
It is said that one travels to learn , to broaden one’s culture, to be able, at the right time, to carry on a conversation honorably, to extend one’s spirit with foreign beauties of art and nature. All this is true, provided the journey is made calmly, with opportune rests, with the necessary preparation, with… Read More ›
The Secret to Praying Better
“Father, would you teach me how to pray better?” People are always surprised when I answer, “No,” so I have to offer an explanation. I tell them that, “Jesus never said, ‘Pray better.’ He never said, ‘Pray well.’ He didn’t even say, ‘Pray often.’ He did say, ‘Pray always’” (Luke 18:1). Rarely does anyone find… Read More ›
Three Tips For Getting More Out of the Homily
Let’s be honest: We’ve all attended Masses with less than stellar homilies, right? Not all priests (or deacons) are naturally gifted orators, but when their monotone, let’s-repeat-the-Gospel message emerges, we tend to tune out. By the time Mass ends, we realize we may have missed an important point from the homily, but is the homily really… Read More ›
Our gracious Creator has provided for us a Redeemer
By conveying the Bible to people . . . we certainly do them a most interesting act of kindness. We thereby enable them to learn that man was originally created and placed in a state of happiness, but, becoming disobedient, was subjected to the degradation and evils which he and his posterity have since experienced…. Read More ›
In ‘Review’ of Life, Bad Events Disappear after Repentance
There is nothing of this earth worth a hurtful word. When we die, we will relive what we thought, said, and did. Take it from RaNalle Wallace, who nearly died in 1985 during the crash of a small plane in Utah. We are always careful with near-death accounts. There are often elements that we have… Read More ›
Summer Reading List
Fifty years ago, prior to my freshman year at Baltimore’s St. Paul Latin High School, the late Father W. Vincent Bechtel introduced me to The Summer Reading List, upper-case. Father Bechtel didn’t fool around: he tossed his teenage charges into the deep end of the English and American literature pool and told us, in effect,… Read More ›
Another Way to Look at Dressing for Mass
Jennifer Fulwiler: A few months ago when I was out of town visiting another church, I saw a sight that I won’t soon forget. I had just settled into the pew a few minutes before Mass when something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I looked over to see a voluptuous woman in… Read More ›
The role of wine in Scripture and health
Have you ever wondered about the emphasis in our faith — including during Mass — on wine? We’re not talking about overdoing it. We’re talking about the role it has played from the first miracle of Jesus (at the behest of the Blessed Mother) to the Last Supper. And before: It goes back at least… Read More ›