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My beloved Station X. It is in this station that the Lord has spoken to me like in no other. He calls me to Himself, in all of His self-giving. This station challenges me to greater obedience, self-sacrifice and ultimately-- to joy, in ways that I have trouble explaining. The stripping of His garments is far more than the removal of His robes. It is the absolute disrobing of His dignity. He steps voluntarily into shame and humiliation...all for me, and you. Without hesitation

Twenty-two pages of notes I have taken in the last few days while sitting at the feet of Fr. Jacques Philippe. This humble, profound mouthpiece of God has challenged me on my Lenten journey in so many ways. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” 1 John 4:20-21 True and

“Things seldom happen as we expect,” according to Fr. Jacques Philippe (who you can meet and hear live THIS TUESDAY, March 21 in DC. Register here). In his beautiful book, Interior Freedom, Fr. Philippe goes on to say: “Most of our fears and apprehensions turn out to be completely imaginary. Difficulties we anticipated become very simple in reality; and the real difficulties are things that didn’t occur to us. It’s better to accept things as they come, one after another, trus

“I feel your pain.” There is in reality, only One person who can actually say those words and mean them. These next few weeks we will be walking the Way of the Cross, side by side with Jesus. I pray that, as you meditate on them, just two per week, that God will in a new and fresh way speak to you through them. Offer to Him your sufferings. Be united to His with yours. Enter into the mystery where a bond of love so deep can be forged that nothing on this earth can tear you as

“I won’t eat chocolate! I won’t eat chocolate! I won’t eat chocolate!” Lent is far more than Christian “strong arming” our way through forty days of starvation. Lent, at it’s core, is about making room for God’s grace. He wants to more completely flood our hearts and souls with a greater presence of Himself. Here is what poet Robert Herrick has to say in To Keep A True Lent, written in the 17th century: Is this a Fast, to keep The larder lean? And clean From fat of veals and