
Solitude and Communion
At critical moments in his life, Jesus was in solitude, but was solitary with his close disciples.
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At critical moments in his life, Jesus was in solitude, but was solitary with his close disciples.

Bernardine was acknowledged as a great preacher of the era. He had entered the Franciscans at age twenty-two, after spending time nursing plague victims in his hometown of Siena, Italy.

Raising a family may be exhausting and seem to leave little time for specific “spiritual practice,” but it is all about other-centeredness.

Conventual Franciscan Maximilian Kolbe, imprisoned in Auschwitz in 1941, witnessed many fellow prisoners taken to the gas chambers or killed in other brutal ways.

Perhaps we never truly feel we belong to this world, even if we cling to it, make it serve us, and try to get it to accept us.

In recent years the Holy Father has led the Way of the Cross during Holy Week at the Colosseum in Rome. This annual custom would have pleased the great Franciscan preacher Leonard of Port Maurice.

Clarity grows with the spirit of acceptance and the purifying of the mind.

St. Margaret of Cortona was a thirteenth-century Italian orphaned at seven. She later lived with a man to whom she bore a son out of wedlock.

By now, no one needs to tell you about the impact of the pandemic we’re experiencing. There are a great number of inconveniences. There is also a lot of fear and confusion. Social distancing and the rate of change make all of our daily lives more difficult.

The human mind can be very reactive. We don’t get what we want and we rage, complain, or attack whatever we can blame for the disappointment.