Category: Time
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A Rule of Life
Holly Pierlot About the author: Holly Pierlot is a mother of five, grandmother of eleven (and counting) who lives in Prince Edward Island. Holly has a Masters in Catholic Pastoral and Educational Studies from Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, England, and has spent her life as an out-of-the-box Catholic educator: from homeschooling children to tutoring children with…
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The Sacrament of the Present Moment
Jean-Pierre de Caussade About the text: Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675–1751) was a French Jesuit priest who wrote a series of letters to the superior of a convent in Nancy. It seems that his popular book Abandonment to Divine Providence—otherwise known as The Sacrament of the Present Moment—was compiled from those letters. In the book, Caussade presents the…
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Introduction: The Sanctification of Time
When Catholics think about the sanctification of time, they will typically think of the Breviary, the Liturgy of the Hours—the structured method of praying the psalms throughout the day. The praying of the psalms was a practice that began with the Jews but was continued by the earliest Christians. Christians would gather several times a…
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Introduction: The Present
We spend our entire life in the present. It is the only time that really exists. The past is no more except as a series of phantasms in our minds; the future has not yet come to be. Yet, most of us have a hard time living in the present; instead much of our time…
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Paul’s Warning against Idleness: II Thessalonians 3:6–15
About the text: The Second Letter to the Thessalonians is one of Paul’s earlier letters and seems to have been written to correct a wrong opinion about the day of the Lord. A letter falsely claiming to have been written by Paul told the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord was upon them; perhaps…
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John Chrysostom’s Sermon on 2 Thessalonians 3
About the text: John Chrysostom (347–407) began his ecclesiastical career as a monk in the Syrian desert where, it is said, he memorised the entire New Testament. As Archbishop of Constantinople he was well-known for he outstanding sermons that merited for him both the name Chrysostom (“Golden mouth”) and endless persecution. The nobility and clergy…
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On Daily Labour
St. Benedict of Nursia About the text: St. Benedict (480–547) fled the worldliness and corruption of the city of Rome and set up a hermitage at Subiaco. His holiness inspired many other monks to imitate his way of life and seek his guidance. During his lifetime, Benedict established a dozen monasteries—including the famed Monte Cassino, where…
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Leo XIII on Rest from Labour
About the text: Pope Leo XIII, the fourth longest reigning pope in history (r. 1878–1903), is known for his many encyclicals, which kept coming back to two topics: the rosary and socialism. Probably his best remembered encyclical, Rerum Novarum in 1891 lamented the conditions of workers but opposed the solution provided by socialism; instead, the Pope promoted…
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On Consideration, Book V
Bernard of Clairvaux About the text: Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) was one of the earliest members of the Cistercian Order—an attempt at reforming the Benedictines by returning to the Rule of St. Benedict—and certainly its most famous. A skilled preacher and perhaps even a mystic, Bernard’s constant scriptural language and imagery has gained for him the…
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Our Lady’s Tumbler
About the text: The tale of Our Lady’s Tumbler is one of a popular genre in mediaeval France, which tells of Marian piety and miracles performed by Our Lady on behalf of her devotees. This tale appears in the late-twelfth century in the Parisian dialect, but little else is known of its author. While the…