Once St. Ignatius of Loyola saw a religious who was sweeping the house and asked him: “Who are you doing this for?” The religious answered: “I am doing this for the love of God.” To which St. Ignatius said: “It does not matter if we serve the world in a lazy and neglectful way, but […]
Blessed Clement Hofbauer, a Moravian religious and priest who was born in 1751, was pastor at St. Benno’s Church in Warsaw, Poland. Once he saw a homeless boy on the street and he brought him to the rectory, cleaned him up, fed him and catechized him. Little by little he started bringing more boys to
It is said that in the Principality of Monaco, judges condemned an offender to the guillotine, even though they didn’t have a guillotine nor an executioner. They ordered both (a guillotine and an executioner) from France, but as the rent was very expensive, they decided to leave the offender in jail and not to kill
Once an elephant came into the town and was walking down the main street. The elephant was so impressive; no one had seen an elephant before. The people could not believe how big it was. The elephant walked majestically along the street. Suddenly a little lapdog ran up to the elephant and started barking at
There is a pious and beautiful tradition which says that St. Peter cried each time he heard a cock crow since that reminded him of when he denied Jesus. It also says that since he heard a cock every morning, those tears etched furrows on his cheeks. I do not really know if tears for
There is a novel written by Nikos Kazantzaki (a Greek writer, widely considered a great writer of modern Greek literature) in which the main character would ask God: what is your true name? He always heard a voice saying: “my name is ‘it-is-not-enough’, since that is what I say to all those who dare to
A great small action Two weeks ago, on June 18, 2023, the world was shocked when they heard that a submarine, named “Titan”, that was carrying five people had disappeared. After 5 days of intense searching, they found part of the small submarine and concluded that it must have imploded due to the water pressure
A true Christian (and by ‘true Christian’ I mean the opposite of a worldly Christian, true Christians are in the world […] they do not belong to the world (Jn. 17:11.16); If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, […] the world
Once, an archaeologist went on a pilgrimage to the Himalayas. In ancient times the temples, situated at great heights, were very difficult to reach and many people simply did not return because they died on their way. People must have walked along small paths on the edge of very deep cliffs, with eternal snows. Just
Fulton Sheen tells a story of a rich woman who, although she took many humanitarian initiatives, she was not motived by charity alone, but rather there was vainglory behind her works of charity. Only occasionally she gave money just out of charity. When she died, she went to heaven and St. Peter showed her her
