by Br. John Gregory Ignatius
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​With Lent approaching, we are reminded of its traditional pillars of prayer, fasting, and
almsgiving. While we generally should intensify our prayer and almsgiving this season, there
is nothing strictly forcing us to do this. We are, however, compelled to fast on Ash Wednesday
and Good Friday, and to abstain from meat on Fridays. Since we will be fasting, it will be good
to consider how to fast well, that is, how we might fast in spirit as well as in body. To this end,
I will be using Saint Ephrem’s Hymns on the Fast as a guide for us.

Ephrem draws a distinction between different ways of fasting, writing that “[the
scriptures] set apart a fast from a fast.” 1 This does not mean that there are necessarily
external differences in fasting, but that it is the spirit in which one fasts that makes this
distinction. Fasting helps to empty a person, but we who fast need to make sure to be filled
with God, else our fasting will be harmful. How might our fasts be filled with harm? “[O]ur
prayer and fasting [the devil] soils with his envy that our offering be shameful.” 2 Temptation
comes to suggest evils to us in order that we might become more wicked through our lack,
“for someone he sees abstaining from food, he sates him with anger.” 3 Ephrem seems to
consider this as not fasting, giving us an image of “fasters who instead of food consumed a
man’s flesh.” 4
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So how do we actually fast in spirit? I think there are two things to consider. The first is
already suggested by Ephrem when he mentioned that the evil one seeks to undermine our
prayer and fasting. We should make sure to join prayer with our fast that we might rely on
God’s grace. Second, Ephrem says explicitly that God “gave us living speech to ruminate.” 5

1 Ephrem, Songs for the Fast and Pascha, trans. Joshua Falconer, Blake Hartung, and J. Edward Walters
(The Catholic University of America Press, 2022), 56. On the Holy Fast 1.7.
2 Ibid, 57. 1.9.
3 Ibid, 58. 1.10.
4 Ibid, 68. 3.5.

Ephrem would suggest that we empty ourselves of food and fill our minds and hearts with the
Scriptures, thereby having holy thoughts to consecrate our actions.

​                                                                                                by Sr. Mary Magdalene


I recently read a post by a Catholic writer who referred to a media event he had watched as having had a “Jesus veneer.”  His meaning did not escape me, but the phrase stuck with me and demanded a closer, and perhaps deeper, interpretation.

First off, when I think of “veneer,” I immediately go to an image of wood furniture.  A veneer is a very thin layer of more expensive or precious wood overlaid onto a less expensive, poorer quality wood substrate such as plywood or even particle board.  It was designed so that a piece of furniture could look nice without costing too much.

With regard to the human person, I think it is sometimes easier to put on a surface layer of piety and love of the Lord rather than to give any real attention to what resides in our thoughts, words, actions, the recesses of our hearts or even more so, the cost of being a follower.  

Jesus doesn’t just simply ask us to wear him on the surface, but rather to be transformed into his likeness from the inside!
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                                 Luke 11:39 So the Lord said to him, "Now then, you 
                                Pharisees clean the outside of your cup and plate,
                                but inside you are full of violence and evil.

                               Eze 36:26 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I 
                               will put within you; and I will remove from your body the 
                               heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.


This Lent might be a good time to look below the surface of our own spiritual lives. (Not the spiritual lives of others, but of our own!)  What lies under the surface?  Is Jesus simply a veneer we show the world in order to portray something more beautiful than our lives and our personal affections?  Do we speak of Jesus without speaking like Jesus?

And what about the cost?  While it takes a certain boldness to speak of Jesus, it takes real courage to allow the Lord of Love access to the deepest places within the human heart and soul; to be transformed into His likeness.

But have no fear!  The One who transformed the Wood of the Cross into a precious piece of love-soaked salvation can certainly reach beyond our surface veneer and transform what is of poor quality into something of great value.

​Sr. Catherine Marie Michael


I recently watched the the film, Triumph of the Heart, about St. Maximilian Kolbe’s experience
in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Because a prisoner escaped, other prisoners are chosen
to go into solitary confinement without food, and Fr. Kolbe takes the place of a man who has a
family. Through his faith in God he is given, throughout the action of the film, the grace to rest in
the peace of Christ and persevere in love.

In the camp, the Nazi guards determine the conditions of their lives and threaten to control how
they react and how they view themselves, as if it was an experiment. Fr. Kolbe encourages his
cellmates to pass the time singing songs that remind them of their heritage and identity, which
further gives those who hear them, courage in knowing that they are not alone in the struggle to
not be defined by their captors who perceive them as no better than beasts. It becomes
understood that other prisoners who were confined in the cell before them had gone insane, and
when their bodies were removed they had bite marks which showed that they bit one another
out of starvation. It would seem that the powerful have supreme authority over those whom they
deem less valuable. Power gives them the authority to determine the circumstances of what is
true, without the need to seek Truth, the overarching meaning of life, as long as they are able to
rule. In their comfort they have the luxury of indifference (cf. C.S.Lewis). Like Pilate during
Christ’s Passion, asking “What is truth?” as the God-Man stands before him, there is a clash
between what is asserted to be true by worldly men and the Creator who is the Source and
Author of the Truth about all that exists, the authoritative Word (John 18:38).

Fr. Kolbe knows the reality of heaven because he cannot deny an encounter he had with Mary,
the Mother of God, and he adheres to that reality through prayer, asking for Mary’s intercession
to give him the words needed to convert his cell-mates’ hearts. The prisoners with their own
stories and personalities eventually accept Fr. Kolbe’s offer of hearing their confessions. One of
the prisoners confesses that he told a woman who ended up to be a spy, the names of leaders
subversive to the Third Reich, and that he included Fr. Kolbe’s name on the list. In this moment
of budding tension it seems that Fr. Kolbe could become angry with the man, but he realizes
that it was God’s will that he serve Him by being there, that he was meant to be there for them,
so he is able to personally forgive and to act in persona Christi, absolving their sins.

By His authority to forgive sins, Christ exercises the might of Divine Authority and extends to us
His generous love and mercy. Although the fallen world’s insanity closes in on them, Fr. Kolbe
ministers to his cellmates so that they might rely on the peace that only Christ can give and be
resolute in their shared struggle out of exile, a crucible marked by cruelty and suffering. Fr.
Kolbe prompts them to finish the race well, to accept and know Christ as Savior, to trust that He
has ultimate authority and to follow Him, the Shepherd of Souls. Given the gift of life entrusted
to them, they are offered time to seek and love God and to further choose to live in this fallen
world in obedience to God’s laws, so that their final actions with the help of God’s grace,
preserve the dignity and original beauty of their souls (cf. CCC 1701). They seem to be
enlightened with a flash of understanding, that God created each person to belong in His love
and for a divine purpose that exceeds fallen man’s limitations, not for insanity, despair, and
death, and that each of their lives matters to God (cf. Mark 12:17; May, Ch 6). They struggle to
not to be defined by despair, so that in heaven they may share the joy of the victory of life over
death that Christ accomplished so that all might be saved.

Fr. Kolbe clings to the Truth of the Catholic faith. Truth however, is not abstract. Truth is a
Person and by abiding in Truth we can find peace and sanity no matter what suffering and
insanity exists in the shadow of death (cf. Luke 1:68-79; Wiley, p. 45). We find rest in the Prince
of Peace who, in humility took on our human nature to elevate us through participation in His
divine nature, giving us His very self (2Peter 1:4). By His grace we are healed with renewed
minds in Christ (Rom 12: 2). We enter into the life of grace which is participation in God’s very
life and are given refuge in His will which is the way of peace, no longer slaves to sin and death,
but sons and daughters of God, free to inherit eternal life.


Triumph of the Heart, The Passion of St. Maximilian Kolbe was written and directed by Anthony
D’Ambrosio. Thank you to The Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore for
hosting the screening of the film in September 2025. https://www.triumphoftheheart.com/

References:
Lewis, C.S., The Screwtape Letters, ISBN 0006280609.
May, William, An Introduction to Moral Theology, 2nd edition, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Div, 2003,
Ch. 6.
Sheed, Frank, Theology and Sanity, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1993.
Wiley, P. et al, The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Craft of Catechesis, Ignatius Press, San
Francisco, 2008, Ch 3, pp. 45-46, Doctrine is personal.
CCC = Catechism of the Catholic Church, ISBN 0-385-50819-0.

                                                                                               by Brother Thomas Aquinas


Three college roommates rented an apartment after graduation and were in need of furniture to
replace the pieces that had been provided by campus dorms. Besides purchases for the living and
dining areas, each bought a self-assemble bedframe for his bedroom. Upon beginning to
assemble the bedframes, however, they found the accompanying instructions to be confusing and
not immediately clear.

The first roommate, seeing no help in the instructional guide, threw it away and began forcing
the various pieces together as he saw fit. In the process, some of the components cracked or
broke and had to be discarded as well. When he was finished, he found that his mattress did not
fit properly on the frame because parts of it had been bent in order to fit certain connections
together. And when he laid down to sleep, the poorly built frame could not support the weight it
was designed for and collapsed beneath him.

The second roommate initially set aside the assembly instructions as well but carefully examined
each piece of the kit so as to make sense for himself of the purpose of each. He observed subtle
differences between some components that the first roommate had ignored and ascertained which
fit properly together with which others. But after struggling many hours he could not determine
how one final piece was to be used and, exhausted from the day’s efforts, finally consulted the
instructions. He successfully completed the bedframe but slept poorly, since he had stayed up
late in the night to finish it.

The third roommate, also puzzled initially, studied the full instruction booklet and discovered a
link to the manufacturer’s website with a step-by-step video explaining in great detail each step
of the assembly process. He watched the entire process before replaying the video and following
along, finishing in what seemed almost no time at all. Pleasantly surprised by how simple the
assembly turned out to be, he organized his other belongings and went to sleep early.

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There are some who suppose God to be an arbitrary dictator who issues laws in order to restrict
our behavior. While we certainly are commanded to avoid all forms of sin, God’s laws take the
form not of meaningless constraints but rather an instruction manual, of sorts, for flourishing as a
human being. The bedframe manufacturer understands the design and assembly process of the
bedframe that each roommate bought and provided instructions so that they could use it for its
intended purpose. More eminently, as the author of human nature, God knows which acts will
lead us closer to or further from him, and His laws guide us in choosing the former, that we
might become more like Him, the end for which He made us.

God has written His law on the human heart (see Jer 31:33, Rom 2:15), but in our fallen state it
can be difficult to recognize them as such. Indeed, although the natural law can be discovered
through human reason, on our own this would only come through much time and effort,
requiring errors to be corrected along the way. Thus, in His merciful love for us, God also reveals
His law in the Ten Commandments and in Church teaching, that we might take confidence in his
guidance and more surely seek ever to grow closer to Him in this life and the next.
​