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Post haec vidi turbam magnam…After this I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands (Apoc. 7:9).

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

There is a question that has crossed the mind of every believer at one time or another, and tested the mind of many a theologian, both in our day and in times past. It is the problem of the number of the elect: what part of mankind, in the end, will have been saved from the terrible fate of eternal damnation and what part welcomed into the blessed life of God’s eternal friendship? “How narrow is the […]

Signum magnum apparuit in caelo, A great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. (Revelation 12:1)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

Often has Saint John’s vision of the woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet been understood as a prophecy describing historical events surrounding a given generation of believers. Such was surely the case with the early Christians, who expected the end of the world to be very near. More generally, in this prophetic image we contemplate both the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Church herself as she endures the hardships of her earthly pilgrimage and the great war that is waged between God and the devil, […]

Then Peter answering, said to him: Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? (Mt. 19: 27)

Dear Brothers and Sisters
My Very Dear Sons,

When Saint Peter declared to the Lord that he and the other Apostles had “left all things” and followed Him, he surely did not fully realize the immense consequences of his words. He certainly did not think at that moment how thousands upon thousands of human beings in future times would imitate his example by giving up all their earthly possessions, in order to be more perfect followers of Christ. How could he have known then that hermits, monks and nuns would someday fill the desert places of earth like so many John the Baptists. Surely, it did not cross Peter’s […]

At that time…Jesus saith to [His disciples]: But whom do you say that I am?

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very Dear Sons,

There is something supremely important about love in its highest expression. “God is love [or charity],” as the Apostle Saint John teaches us, “and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God and God in him.” Saint Paul, for his part, surpasses himself with his apotheosis, his hymn, of charity in the first letter to the Corinthians. “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” (I Corin. 13). In a world where we do not enjoy the beatific vision, where, like birds of the night, we see only by the twilight of […]