Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

Tag: faith

Italian astronaut glimpsed God’s beauty while in space

Rome, Italy, Mar 4, 2012 / 04:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Italian astronaut who spoke to Pope Benedict XVI from space says that being in orbit inspires deep contemplation and raises the mind and heart to God. “It’s the beauty,” Roberto Vittori told CNA, “the beauty of the earth seen from space, the beauty of… Read More ›

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Faith

We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You have to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after you have begun to believe, your faith itself must be tested and purified. Christianity is not merely… Read More ›

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How to Pray Like Jesus

During a recent talk, Fr. Thomas Richter explained that praying like Jesus requires one thing: to desire for God to have his way in your life. As the vocation director for the Bismarck diocese, it would seem that Fr. Tom knows about answered prayers. Bismarck has the second highest per capita vocations in the country,… Read More ›

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Our search and our faith

When things get dark, then it is time to draw on faith. If difficult, no matter, for our faith though a gift, is also a choice, one that needs to be made over and over again. We live in a world wherein any belief system has to be based on a certain level of faith…. Read More ›

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That for which I was sent is accomplished

Moses, the Libyan, was a very gentle and exceedingly lovable man who was accounted worthy of the gift of healing.  He told me: When I was a youth in the monastery, we dug a large cistern twenty feet across.  Eighty of us had been digging away there for three days and we had gone about a cubit farther than… Read More ›

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What we are called to emulate

Youth is for the young. Getting older is something that should be embraced celebrated, loved even, for that is after all reality, we age. Perhaps there is a reason for this, aging. Maybe life is set up so that as we get older we can have more time to seek more important pass times, more… Read More ›

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Beware the praise of others

When you hear someone praising you, remember the words of the Scriptures: “O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths” (Isaiah 3:12). Such praise prevents us from seeing the abomination of our actions; it probably does harm even to those who have attained a measure… Read More ›

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Christianity a’la carte

If reason insists on shutting down every opening to the sacred, the result will be an eclipse of reason itself . . . The eclipse of the sacred has led to a do-it-yourself approach to the holy, to a kind of supermarket of religious faiths . . . Christianity a’la carte . . .By contrast,… Read More ›

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Purpose

Inner pain is a far from rare experience for humans.  Being self-aware comes with a high cost that often causes the inner self, or soul or consciousness to bleed.  Perhaps our first step towards being unique personalities with a personal perspective starts when we first experience pain.  For it is then, when we are torn… Read More ›

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Conquered by Christ

Italicus, a citizen of Gaza and a Christian, was training horses for the chariot races against the duumvir (co-mayor), a worshiper of the idol Marnas… Chariots ran seven times around the circus and victory went to that side which succeeded in breaking down the horses of their opponent. Now, as Italicus’ rival had a magician… Read More ›

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