Fr. Peter J. Gruber

Nine years a priest today.

“The first and, in a certain way, the only thing that Jesus asks of his priests is that we love him. The simplicity of divine things disconcerts us; that is why we cannot understand that, more than our words, more than our sacrifices, Jesus asks of us our love, and of all the many great things that a priest can do, the greatest is to love Jesus.” -Archbishop Luis Martínez, The Priest: Mystery of Love

“It is a mere abuse to confess any sin whatever, be it mortal or venial, without intending to put it altogether away, that being the express object of confession.” -St. Francis de Sales

@EamonnClark I am most offended by the lack of amices…

Actual picture of Pope Leo XIV signing the encyclical. Do not ask my sources. Thanks.

JUST IN: Vatican announces that Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical — titled Magnifica Humanitas, on the safeguarding of the human person in the age of AI — will be presented at 11:30am on Monday, May 25, in the Vaticanʼs Synod Hall, in the presence of the Holy Father. Speakers at the presentation will include: Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Michael Czerny, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development; Professor Anna Rowlands, Political Theology, including Catholic Social Teaching, and theological ethics of human migration, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, United Kingdom; Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic (USA) and head of interpretability research for artificial intelligence; Dr. Leocadie Lushombo, Political Theology and Catholic Social Thought, Jesuit School of Theology / Santa Clara University, California. Concluding remarks will be delivered by thel Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. The presentation will also include an address by Pope Leo XIV. Magnifica Humanitas was signed and dated on May 15, the 135th anniversary of the promulgation of Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum.

“The hidden God, the mysterious God, is not distant and absent: He is always the God who is near.” -Henri de Lubac

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” J. R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“Everything is a grace because everything is God's gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events – to the heart that loves, all is well.” St. Therese of Lisieux

“People live ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years without a plan. No wonder they find their existence humdrum and tiresome. IF they were farmers, they would probably plant wheat one week, root it up and plant barley the next then dig up the barley and plant watermelon, then dig up the watermelon another week and plant oats. Fall comes around and they have no harvest; if they repeated that process for years, they could go crazy. It is the meaninglessness of life that makes it wearisome.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen

“There is nothing in our faith that tells us that suffering is not suffering. Pain is pain, loss is loss, and grief is grief. There is no escape, and no promise of escape, from these realities for a Christian. Our faith teaches us that both in the pain, and because of the pain, God draws nearer to us and we can draw nearer to God. It is this presence of God, hidden in the darkness of our own grief, that is the source of our prayer of thanksgiving.” -Fr. Jonathan Robinson, On the Lord’s Appearing

“The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father.” Vatican II, Ad gentes 2

"It is the part of a futile soul to busy itself with examining the lives of others." -St. Francis de Sales

“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission – I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his – if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work.” -St. John Henry Newman

“After a mother has smiled at her child for many days and weeks, she finally receives her child's smile in response. She has awakened love in the heart of her child, and as the child awakens to love, it also awakens to knowledge: the initially empty sense-impressions gather meaningfully around the core of the Thou. Knowledge (with its whole complex of intuition and concept) comes into play, because the play of love has already begun beforehand, initiated by the mother, the transcendent.” Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible

What the Holy Spirit does divinely, Mary does spiritually, and the Church does sacramentally.

“Isn’t it a basic truth that we are brought to prayer only by passing through suffering?” -Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World

“Man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.” -Gaudium et spes 24

“On the day of our priestly ordination we surrender ourselves to Jesus so that he might make use of us. Our life is his, our thoughts are his, our words are his; our actions, work, time, and sacrifices are his; we do not live for ourselves; we live for him and we live for souls, but we live for souls because we live for Jesus Christ.” -Archbishop Luis Martínez, The Priest, Mystery of Love

Granting there are more pressing issues facing the Church, but could we maybe, at some point, get a common Latin version of the Fatima Prayer?

“In the long run, is there any other way of handing on the Gospel than by transmitting to another person one's personal experience of faith?” St. Paul VI, Evangelii nuntiandi