How do you discern God’s voice in your heart? How do you recognize the voice of evil seeking to lead you astray? Thankfully, Fr. Timothy Gallagher is here to help us tell the difference. We’ll examine St. Ignatius’ 14 rules of discernment and how they can transform our spiritual lives.
Read moreSurprise Me! →
By the end of his life, St. Ignatius of Loyola was pausing every hour to examine his thoughts, actions, and feelings. But it wasn’t because he was being overly scrupulous about his sins. This hourly examination flowed only from a place of surrender and love, which was almost childlike in its totality.
Read moreSeparating the Truth from the Lie →
We all know the value of retreats—of withdrawing from the world for a short time to focus on our lives in Christ. Iñigo arrived in Manresa and retreated to a cave—for eleven months! It was a difficult but crucial time in which he learned a great deal about himself. He learned to distinguish between the inspirations of the “good spirit”—the Holy Spirit—and the temptations of the “evil spirit”—or Satan. He also learned to recognize how the evil spirit was trying to derail his determination to grow closer to God.
Read moreWaking Up to the Water →
Two young fish were swimming along in the ocean one day when they encountered an older fish, who said to them, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish swam on, and eventually one of them turned to the other and asked, “What the heck is water?”
The point of this story? The most important realities are often the ones that are the hardest for us to see and talk about. For Christians, that means that we can “swim” through life without recognizing the presence of God—and live an unexamined life. But as Socrates once famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
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