Essay Excerpt: Love is Always Conditional

Posted by Leonard J. DeLorenzo on Apr 29, 2021 11:48:00 AM

Editorial Note: This excerpt is taken from an essay by the same name originally published at Church Life Journal on December 18, 2018.

We want to say that love is unconditional. It seems right. It is equal parts comforting and challenging. It is comforting because if I am loved, then there is nothing I can do to lose that. It is challenging because in order to love, I have to will to be untroubled by obstacles. We do not want to say love is conditional because we fear submitting love to the twisted logic of relationship terrorism: if you do not meet my demands, I deprive you of what is good for you, or vice versa. We think of conditions as qualifications and we do not want to attach qualifications to love. So we say love is unconditional. But that is wrong. Love is always conditional.

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Topics: leonardjdelorenzo, love, saints, self-giving love, feast days, church life journal

Three Essays for the Feast of St. Óscar Romero

Posted by The Editors on Mar 24, 2021 7:04:00 AM

Today is the feast day of St. Óscar Romero, fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. Like many saints in the Church, Romero’s feast day marks his dies natales, or birth day into eternal life—in other words, the day of his death. 41 years ago today, Romero was shot and killed as he was celebrating Mass. Romero was known for his impassioned preaching and his outspokenness against corruption, violence, and oppression. Here are three pieces to help you learn more about this remarkable martyr for the faith.

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Topics: preaching, saints, martyrdom, liturgical year, St. Oscar Romero

To be just like St. Joseph

Posted by John Cavadini on Mar 19, 2021 7:06:00 AM

St. Julian Peter Eymard, in his little devotional handbook called Month of St. Joseph, tells us that “devotion to St. Joseph is one of the choicest graces that God can give to a soul, for it is tantamount to revealing the entire treasury of our Lord’s graces.”

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Topics: saints, Saturdays with the Saints, inspiration

Podcast Excerpt: The Three Wisemen

Posted by Leonard J. DeLorenzo on Dec 30, 2020 11:16:00 AM

Some of the most splendid preaching in the Catholic tradition has occurred during the seasons of Advent and Christmas. Here we provided excerpts from the seasonal sermons of three exceptional preachers and Christian witnesses: St. John Newman, Fr. Alfred Delp, and St. Oscar Romero.

These sermons were the subject of the Church Life Today episode entitled “The Three Wisemen.”

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Topics: sermons, saints, Scripture, Advent, Christmas

St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Grace of Self-Sacrificing Love

Posted by Carolyn Pirtle on Aug 14, 2020 3:10:19 PM

Today, the Church honors St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest who volunteered to die in place of a fellow prisoner at Auschwitz, thus embodying the teaching of Jesus, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Yet this last and greatest act of St. Maximilian did not emerge from a vacuum; it was the result of a lifetime of being conformed to Christ through prayer and sacrifice. Only by consistently practicing self-denial, by dying to himself and taking up his cross daily, could St. Maximilian have been conformed to Christ to such a degree that he was in that pivotal moment able to imitate Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross, laying down his life so that another might live. 

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Topics: human dignity, saints, Saturdays with the Saints, self-giving love, St. Maximilian Kolbe

Living and Handing on the Faith

The McGrath Institute Blog helps Catholics live and hand on their faith in Jesus Christ, especially in the family, home and parish, and cultivates and inspires everyday leaders to live out the fullness and richness of their faith in the simple, little ways that make up Church life.

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