Today is a post from Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, PhD. Deacon Jamison is a Catholic Philosopher. It is a long read, but well worth the effort. Grab some coffee, a quiet place, and ask for the intercession of Saint Anselm, as we explore Saint Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God.

Anselm was born in Aosta, in northern Italy, and became a monk of Bec in Normandy, where he taught theology and devoted himself to the spiritual life. After some years as abbot, he succeeded his master Lanfranc as archbishop of Canterbury. His bitter disputes with the kings of England over the independence of the Church resulted in his twice being exiled. He died at Canterbury on 21 April 1109. He is remembered for his theological learning and writings, and for organising and reforming church life in England.

Source: Universalis

Chapter II of St Anselm’s Proslogion

Deacon Jamison, OCDS, PhD

St Anselm’s so-called “ontological” argument for the existence of God (in Chapter II of the Proslogion) was clearly refuted by St Thomas Aquinas in several texts, though Anselm’s other arguments were recognized as sound. Immanuel Kant’s well-known criticisms of the ontological argument were simply repeating what St Thomas had already said about it. Thomists developed several lines of criticism against it, as they did against all a priori arguments for the existence of God. They pointed out that any argument that attempts to infer actual existence from conceptual existence commits the fallacy of equivocation by an invalid shift in supposition.

Some modern Catholic philosophers have defended St Anselm’s argument as presupposing mystical experience of the existence of God through prayer, rather than as attempting to prove God’s existence by reason alone, but the medieval philosophers did not interpret the argument in that manner. And traditional Thomists have kept pointing out that even in the mystical experience of God our knowledge of God is necessarily indirect. In order to infer God’s actual existence from God’s essence, we would first have to know the essence of God directly in itself, which is impossible in this life. Only in the Beatific Vision in heaven will we possess such knowledge and happiness.

Some commentators, Karl Barth for example, seem to argue along the following lines (here summarized):

Thomists reject St Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God specifically because they have a different understanding of the relation of thought to existence than that held by St Anselm and others. St Anselm’s main conclusion seems to be that God cannot be thought not to exist (hence, the “fool” says in his heart that there is no God). If this realization constitutes an answer to his prayer in the first chapter, then we are dealing with something along the lines of Platonic anamnesis. Hence, the “argument” (or better, the “prayer”) is more a matter of the mind utilizing reason to find the memory or trace of its Creator in itself and experiencing the intuition that rationally flows from that recovery. This would make sense of St Anselm’s quest of faith seeking understanding in a unique way of immanence. He is presupposing the existence of God in faith. The one who believes and follows the argument or prayer is thereby given an understanding of the necessity of God’s existence, but the foundation of this understanding is the grace of rational certainty infused in the human intellect by God. The human intellect is in a supernatural participatory relationship with God through the infused virtue of faith. (See Etienne Gilson, “The Meaning and Nature of St Anselm’s Argument.”)

In Chapter I of the Proslogion, St Anselm encourages us to pray to God as follows:

Up now, slight man! Flee, for a little while, thy occupations; hide thyself, for a time, from thy disturbing thoughts. Cast aside, now, thy burdensome cares, and put away thy toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God; and rest for a little time in him. Enter the inner chamber of thy mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God, and such as can aid thee in seeking him; close thy door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek thy face; thy face, Lord, will I seek (Psalms 27:8).

Teach me, O Lord, to seek thee, and reveal thyself to me, when I seek thee, for I cannot seek thee, except thou teach me, nor find thee, except thou reveal thyself. Let me seek thee in longing, let me long for thee in seeking; let me find thee in love, and love thee in finding.

Lord, I acknowledge and I thank thee that thou hast created me in this thine image, in order that I may be mindful of thee, may conceive of thee, and love thee; but that image has been so consumed and wasted away by vices, and obscured by the smoke of wrong-doing, that it cannot achieve that for which it was made, except thou renew it, and create it anew. I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate thy sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, --that unless I believed, I should not understand. (Works of St Anselm, translated by Sidney Norton Deane, 1903)

Against the modern or Barthian line of interpretation, which still remains very much a minority opinion, most commentators take Anselm’s so-called ontological argument out of the theological context of faith and prayer and believe that it simply goes like this:

God is the greatest conceivable being, i.e. that being than which nothing greater can be conceived. But if (contrary to fact) he did not actually exist, then he would not be the greatest conceivable being, since we would be able to conceive a greater being, viz. one who actually existed. Thus, just from the fact that supposing that God lacks actual existence entails a contradiction, it follows by reduction to the absurd that God must actually exist.

In other words, God must actually exist, because actual existence uniquely belongs to the concept of God. It is true that God must exist, but St Anselm’s argument in Chapter II of the Proslogion seems to lack a good reason why this is so. The argument appears to be a fallacious oversimplification, because even though it is true that actual existence uniquely belongs to the concept of God, it is nevertheless logically possible that God exists not actually but only conceptually (in the mind, so to speak).

The fallacy can be described in various ways. Here are two ridiculous arguments that commit the same fallacy as Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God: (1) “Horse is a species, and Seabiscuit is a horse, therefore Seabiscuit is a species.” (2) “Humans subsist (by virtue of their immortal souls), and Santa Claus is a human, therefore Santa Claus subsists.” The first argument equivocates on the term “horse” signifying either a concept or an actual individual. The second argument is one that I made up to illustrate the fact that even when subsistence is a necessary element of a thing’s nature, it still does not follow that the thing actually exists. Only if the modern character of Santa Claus were an actual human person would his soul actually subsist.

These two arguments are not completely analogous to Anselm’s ontological argument, but they are unsound for the same reason. From the fact that the concept of God as the greatest conceivable being necessarily includes actual existence, it does not follow that God actually exists. Attempting to infer actual being from mental being is a confusion between that which is true simpliciter (absolutely) and that which is true secundum quid (in a certain sense). Actual being necessarily follows in a conclusion only if it is already present in the premises. And if the actual existence of God is implicitly assumed in the premises of an argument for the existence of God, then the argument begs the question. The fallacy in Anselm’s ontological argument is therefore a material fallacy, not a formal fallacy. The argument either contains an equivocation or begs the question, depending on what exactly the speaker is asserting.

In general, from the order of ideas alone, we cannot validly infer anything about the order of actuality. All sound arguments for the existence of God or the Uncaused Cause must therefore be a posteriori. This is an Aristotelian principle that Dominican theology after Aquinas consistently defended. Anselm had taken the existence of God as self-evident and then supposed that the denial of the existence of God was incoherent in itself a priori, even without recourse to truths known a posteriori. This line of reasoning assumes that being known in itself is the same as being known to us. But the assumption is problematic, as Aristotle pointed out, and Aquinas explicitly invoked Aristotle’s distinction against Anselm’s novel Proslogion argument.

Sometimes the subject of a proposition necessarily does contain the predicate of the proposition, thus making the proposition conceptually true, and yet the truth of the proposition might not be immediately known to everyone, since some people lack sufficient knowledge of the subject. Take, for example, the proposition “Water is H₂O.” If we innately had sufficient knowledge of the essence of water, we could just recollect (by anamnesis) and examine the contents of that knowledge, thus demonstrating to ourselves that water is H₂O. But we do not innately have sufficient knowledge of the essence of water, so we must demonstrate to ourselves that water is H₂O by reasoning from truths which are naturally more known to us. Similarly, Anselm, in order to make his ontological argument for God’s existence valid, had to assume that we already have innate or infused knowledge of God’s essence and just need to remember what we already know about God.

Every time in the history of philosophy someone advances the ontological argument, others who reflect on it raise the objection, “It is true that the greatest conceivable being must be conceived as having actual existence, but it does not follow that there is anything in reality that actually corresponds to this concept.” The existence of created material things is naturally more known to us than the existence of God is known to us, so we must reason to God’s existence from what he has created and made naturally known to us. Anselm’s famous line of reasoning works only on the assumption that we actually possess innate, intuitive, or infused knowledge of God’s essence. As we noted above, some theologians (e.g. Karl Barth) defend Anselm’s line of reasoning as presupposing the content of faith, but if Anselm’s reasoning is based on faith, then it accepts on the basis of testimony the very truth that it attempts to prove on the basis of reason, and thus it begs the question. This defense seems inadequate and misguided, especially since Anselm himself does not use it in reply when his contemporary Gaunilo of Marmoutiers interprets the argument in Chapter II of the Proslogion as based on reason alone.

Aquinas maintains that the existence of God can be demonstrated by reason alone, not a priori, but only from truths which are more known to us a posteriori. This approach does not beg the question. And for Aquinas, whatever is demonstrated and thus known by reason alone is no longer an object of faith per se. The truths of the faith per se are truths which transcend human reason and are thus not subject to rational demonstration. It seems to me that Aquinas in effect says to Anselm, “The novel argument that you give in Chapter II of the Proslogion is viciously circular, since it cannot make the existence of God known to us without assuming that the existence of God is already known to us either by faith or by reason. The existence of God can certainly be made known to us by faith, but the specific question is whether it can also be made known to us by reason alone. And any purely rational demonstration of the existence of God which takes the existence of God as a premise already known to us by reason alone is unsound and unconvincing.”

Aquinas proposes instead that there is no good reason to suppose that we actually possess an innate or intuitive knowledge of the existence of God. Anselm needs to prove that we have such knowledge, if he is not simply begging the question by invoking the content of the faith. Aquinas has no such need, and he does not believe that there is any such proof. He believes instead that we infer and come to know the existence of God from the existence of the material universe. Aquinas therefore rejects Anselm’s argument in Chapter II of the Proslogion and reasons to God’s existence by appealing to truths that are known to us simply from our ordinary experience of the way things are. Anselm himself appeals to such truths in the Monologion. Anselm’s arguments are quite similar to arguments offered by Augustine in the 4^th and 5^th centuries and by Boethius in the 6^th century. The writings of Augustine and Boethius deeply influenced both Anselm and Aquinas.

Note that there are at least five different texts by Aquinas which are relevant to his evaluation of Anselm’s so-called ontological argument for the existence of God:

1. Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book I, Distinction 3, Question 1, Article 2

2. Disputed Questions on Truth, Question 10, Article 12

3. Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, Chapter 11

4. Summa Theologiae, First Part, Question 2, Article 1

5. Commentary on De Trinitate of Boethius, Question 1, Article 3

If the Barthian or modern line of interpretation is correct, then Anselm’s ontological argument belongs to the phenomenological and subjective order of ideas, not to the metaphysical and objective order of essences, which is ironic given that it is called the ontological argument. As a dialectical form of prayer, such reasoning about the content of our ideas toward a better understanding is very helpful. Phenomenology and prayer are related forms of dialectical recollection (anamnesis). Prayer is the recollection of the mind, memory, and heart toward God in faith, hope, and charity. Like faith, prayer is a theological kind of virtue, but it resides in our conscious thoughts and desires. Just as the subjective self presupposes the objective soul, the subjective virtue of prayer presupposes the objective virtue of faith. It is a participation in God’s own knowledge, and it comes in degrees. It may be vocal, mental, or contemplative. It brings divine faith, hope, and charity to perfection. It tends towards looking and listening over speaking and petitioning. It facilitates a transformation of our thoughts and desires, so that we become preoccupied with the highest goods. Above all, through mental and contemplative prayer we become preoccupied with the presence of God. This activity of loving attention to God through faith, hope, and love is the highest human perfection.

Thomistic personalism is a synthesis of the medieval metaphysics of St Thomas Aquinas with the modern phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Realist phenomenology maintains that the object of knowledge exists independently of our percepts, concepts, and conscious attendings and has an identity that transcends such acts of cognition and intuition. A Thomistic realist would maintain further that the object of knowledge has its own substantial and accidental forms which acquire an intentional mode of existence in being cognized, through which they can then be recognized or intuited. Pope St John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla), for example, insists that the intentionality of consciousness is not primary but secondary, and that phenomenology is a supplemental endeavor to recognize and understand intentions which have already been cognized fundamentally through percepts and concepts formed under the natural ontological attitude. See the arguments that he makes in The Acting Person.

Eidetic intuition should not be conflated with abstractive induction or divine illumination. The intuition attained dialectically through recollection in the phenomenological attitude is an indirect kind of knowledge produced by a reflexive act of identity synthesis. The entities thus known and formulated by phenomenological analysis are nevertheless formal identities, revealing and making explicit the necessary universals which are conceptualized directly in ordinary experience. Phenomenology operates in the order of second intentions, presupposing the intellect’s natural and spontaneous power to grasp the essences of things in the order of first intentions.

Phenomenology thus understood is a dialectical endeavor to recollect and understand explicitly and consciously that which we already know implicitly and unconsciously. It is indeed related to Plato’s dialectical method of recollection (anamnesis), but it clarifies and defines forms which exist in matter and are initially comprehended by a process of sensation, perception, abstraction, and induction. Forms impregnate the human faculties with percepts and concepts and can be grasped reflexively as acts having intentional content. In The Acting Person, John Paul II (Wojtyla) offers a workable synthesis of phenomenology with traditional Thomistic epistemology. Modern phenomenologists and transcendental Thomists who attempt to avoid or eliminate the scholastic postulation of impressed and expressed species as natural formal signs are necessarily left with an inadequate theory of meaning and truth, and they are sawing off the very branch on which they are sitting, so to speak.

Aristotelian scholasticism often opposes and attempts to suppress phenomenological existentialism, and modern phenomenological existentialism often opposes and attempts to suppress Aristotelian scholasticism. According to the synthesis of St John Paul II, the truth is that these two paradigms are not totally incommensurable, and any adequate anthropology must include both of them by holding them in continuity. John Paul II regards the antagonism as unnecessary, unfortunate, and counter-productive. The modern existentialist opposition to medieval faculty psychology is just as problematic as the Aristotelian opposition to modern existential psychology. We can grant that phenomenological existentialism can be a path toward sound metaphysics, but only when it remains adequately grounded in sound metaphysics. The lessons that Aristotle taught us must not be forgotten. The Aristotelian philosophical framework is not merely one scientific paradigm among many; rather, it is the prerequisite of scientific understanding itself. Those who abandon the realism of Aristotelian philosophy of science inevitably fall into pragmatism, idealism, or nominalism.

The synthesis of John Paul II facilitates a reconciliation between Anselm’s a priori ontological argument and Aquinas’s Five Ways to prove the existence of God a posteriori. Phenomenological and existential knowledge can be obtained when we reflexively direct our intellects to the dialectical recollection and conceptualization of our own subjective acts of sensing, perceiving, judging, understanding, valuing, remembering, imagining, and meaning. Our external and internal senses cannot sense their own acts, but our intellects by contrast are able to understand their own acts of understanding, along with our other acts of cognition, including those based on the infused content of faith, and thus we can recollect that content and formalize it in sciences of second intentions.

The unique reflexive power of the human intellect is what enables us to employ our memories and imaginations in the perfective mental activity of re-cognizing our own cognitions and re-evaluating our own valuations and attitudes in order to cultivate our comprehension and appreciation of truth, goodness, and beauty and to guide our practical and moral decisions and activities. Empirical and metaphysical knowledge is fundamental and objective, having no necessary dependence on phenomenological and existential knowledge, but by contrast phenomenological and existential knowledge is supplemental and subjective, always presupposing inductive empirical and metaphysical knowledge. Phenomenology can assist the empirical sciences and open a path to metaphysics, but it cannot replace or substitute for them.

The human person is essentially a potency for the actualization of two distinct but unified orders of being.

Co-essential principles always have a prior-posterior relation. The Catholic approach to philosophy is to distinguish in order to unify and integrate. Integration always requires the posterior to be congruent with the prior. As taught in traditional Carmelite anthropology and mystical theology, the human person has a cruciform constitution. Any adequate anthropology must distinguish the vertical and objective dimension of the human person from the horizontal and subjective dimension of the human person and must then unify and integrate them. Any lack of congruence is a disintegration of the human person. See Richard E. Dumont, OCDS, PhD, Commentary on the Writings of St John of the Cross: A Cruciform Mysticism and Christocentric Anthropology, https://www.amazon.com/Commentary-Writings-St-John-Cross/dp/1456497243/.

No demonstration of the existence of God is metaphysically neutral. All demonstrations of the existence of God objectively presuppose first principles such as the principle of non-contradiction, the principle of identity, the principle of sufficient reason, and the principle of finality. May the prayers of St Anselm of Canterbury and St Thomas of Aquino together come to the aid of modern culture, liberate it from the epistemological errors of pragmatism, idealism, and nominalism, and enable it to recover an understanding of the metaphysical principles which lead the human intellect to recognize the existence and goodness of God as the only adequate foundation of human happiness and authenticity.

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About Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, PhD

Deacon Tracy Jamison was raised in a Christian family as the son of a Scotch-Irish evangelical minister in the Campbellite tradition. As an undergraduate he majored in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Cincinnati Christian University, where his parents had been educated. At this institution he met Joyce, who was completing a degree in Church Music, and after graduation they entered the covenant of Christian marriage in 1988. Through the study of philosophy and the writings of the Early Church Fathers, Tracy was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1992. Under the influence of the theological writings of St. John Paul II he began to study the works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross and entered formation as a Secular Carmelite of the Teresian Reform. In 1999 he completed the doctoral program in Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, and in 2002 he made his definitive profession as a Secular Carmelite. In 2010 he was ordained as a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Currently he is an associate professor of philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West.

© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

The heavenly sacrifice, instituted by Christ, is the most gracious legacy of his new covenant. On the night he was delivered up to be crucified he left us this gift as a pledge of his abiding presence.

This sacrifice is our sustenance on life’s journey; by it we are nourished and supported along the road of life until we depart from this world and make our way to the Lord. For this reason he addressed these words to us: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in you.

It was the Lord’s will that his gifts should remain with us, and that we who have been redeemed by his precious blood should constantly be sanctified according to the pattern of his own passion. And so he commanded those faithful disciples of his whom he made the first priests of his Church to enact these mysteries of eternal life continuously. All priests throughout the churches of the world must celebrate these mysteries until Christ comes again from heaven. Therefore let us all, priests and people alike, be faithful to this everlasting memorial of our redemption. Daily it is before our eyes as a representation of the passion of Christ. We hold it in our hands, we receive it in our mouths, and we accept it in our hearts.

It is appropriate that we should receive the body of Christ in the form of bread, because, as there are many grains of wheat in the flour from which bread is made by mixing it with water and baking it with fire, so also we know that many members make up the one body of Christ which is brought to maturity by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Christ was born of the Holy Spirit, and since it was fitting that he should fulfill all justice, he entered into the waters of baptism to sanctify them. When he left the Jordan he was filled with the Holy Spirit who had descended upon him in the form of a dove. As the evangelist tells us: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.

Similarly, the wine of Christ’s blood, drawn from the many grapes of the vineyard that he had planted, is extracted in the wine-press of the cross. When men receive it with believing hearts, like capacious wineskins, it ferments within them by its own power.

And so, now that you have escaped from the power of Egypt and of Pharaoh, who is the devil, join with us, all of you, in receiving this sacrifice of the saving passover with the eagerness of dedicated hearts. Then in our inmost being we shall be wholly sanctified by the very Lord Jesus Christ whom we believe to be present in his sacraments, and whose boundless power abides for ever.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Saint Paul rejoices in the knowledge that spiritual health has been restored to the human race. Just as death entered the world through Adam, so life has been given back to the world through Christ. And again: The first man, being from the earth, is earthly by nature; the second man is from heaven and is heavenly.

He adds the following: As we have borne the image of the earthly man, (that is, the image of human nature grown old in sin) so let us bear the image of the heavenly man: that is, human nature raised up, redeemed, restored and purified in Christ. We must hold fast to the salvation we have received. As the Apostle himself says: Christ is the beginning (that is, the source of resurrection and life); therefore those who belong to Christ (those who model their lives on his purity) will be secure in the hope of his resurrection and of enjoying with him the glory promised in heaven. As our Lord himself said in the gospel: Whoever follows me will not perish, but will pass from death to life.

Thus the passion of our Savior is the salvation of mankind. The reason why he desired to die for us was that he wanted us who believe in him to live for ever. In the fullness of time it was his will to become what we are, so that we might inherit the eternity he promised and live with him for ever.

Here, then, is the grace conferred by these heavenly mysteries, the gift which Easter brings, the most longed-for feast of the year; here are the beginnings of creatures newly formed: children born from the life-giving font of holy Church, born anew with the simplicity of little ones, and crying out with the evidence of a clean conscience. Chaste fathers and inviolate mothers accompany this new family, countless in number, born to new life through faith. As they emerge from the grace-giving womb of the font, a blaze of candles burns brightly beneath the tree of faith. The Easter festival brings the grace of holiness from heaven to men. Through the repeated celebration of the sacred mysteries they receive the spiritual nourishment of the sacraments. Fostered at the very heart of holy Church, the fellowship of one community worships the one God, adoring the triple name of his essential holiness, and together with the prophet sings the psalm which belongs to this yearly festival: This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad. And what is this day? It is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the author of light, who brings the sunrise and the beginning of life, saying of himself: I am the light of day; whoever walks in daylight does not stumble. That is to say, whoever follows Christ in all things will come by this path to the throne of eternal light.

Such was the prayer Christ made to the Father while he was still on earth: Father, I desire that where I am they also may be, those who have come to believe in me; and that as you are in me and I in you, so they may abide in us.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

From the Catechesis by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop

If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish,” commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.

If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.

“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.

Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

The Lamb that was slain has delivered us from death and given us life

There was much proclaimed by the prophets about the mystery of the Passover: that mystery is Christ, and to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

For the sake of suffering humanity he came down from heaven to earth, clothed himself in that humanity in the Virgin’s womb, and was born a man. Having then a body capable of suffering, he took the pain of fallen man upon himself; he triumphed over the diseases of soul and body that were its cause, and by his Spirit, which was incapable of dying, he dealt man’s destroyer, death, a fatal blow.

He was led forth like a lamb; he was slaughtered like a sheep. He ransomed us from our servitude to the world, as he had ransomed Israel from the hand of Egypt; he freed us from our slavery to the devil, as he had freed Israel from the hand of Pharaoh. He sealed our souls with his own Spirit, and the members of our body with his own blood.

He is the One who covered death with shame and cast the devil into mourning, as Moses cast Pharaoh into mourning. He is the One who smote sin and robbed iniquity of offspring, as Moses robbed the Egyptians of their offspring. He is the One who brought us out of slavery into freedom, out of darkness into light, out of death into life, out of tyranny into an eternal kingdom; who made us a new priesthood, a people chosen to be his own for ever. He is the Passover that is our salvation.

It is he who endured every kind of suffering in all those who foreshadowed him. In Abel he was slain, in Isaac bound, in Jacob exiled, in Joseph sold, in Moses exposed to die. He was sacrificed in the Passover lamb, persecuted in David, dishonored in the prophets.

It is he who was made man of the Virgin, he who was hung on the tree; it is he who was buried in the earth, raised from the dead, and taken up to the heights of heaven. He is the mute lamb, the slain lamb, the lamb born of Mary, the fair ewe. He was seized from the flock, dragged off to be slaughtered, sacrificed in the evening, and buried at night. On the tree no bone of his was broken; in the earth his body knew no decay. He is the One who rose from the dead, and who raised man from the depths of the tomb.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

From a letter of Saint Leo the Great, pope

Lowliness is assumed by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that was incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.

He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect nature of a true man, whole in his own nature, whole in ours. By our nature we mean what the Creator had fashioned in us from the beginning, and took to himself in order to restore it.

For in the Savior there was no trace of what the deceiver introduced and man, being misled, allowed to enter. It does not follow that because he submitted to sharing in our human weakness he therefore shared in our sins.

He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.

Thus the Son of God enters this lowly world. He comes down from the throne of heaven, yet does not separate himself from the Father’s glory. He is born in a new condition, by a new birth.

He was born in a new condition, for, invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, he chose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death.

He who is true God is also true man. There is no falsehood in this unity as long as the lowliness of man and the pre-eminence of God coexist in mutual relationship.

As God does not change by his condescension, so man is not swallowed up by being exalted. Each nature exercises its own activity, in communion with the other. The Word does what is proper to the Word, the flesh fulfills what is proper to the flesh.

One nature is resplendent with miracles, the other falls victim to injuries. As the Word does not lose equality with the Father’s glory, so the flesh does not leave behind the nature of our race.

One and the same person – this must be said over and over again – is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man. He is God in virtue of the fact that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is man in virtue of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

From a sermon by Saint Bernardine of Siena, priest

There is a general rule concerning all special graces granted to any human being. Whenever the divine favor chooses someone to receive a special grace, or to accept a lofty vocation, God adorns the person chosen with all the gifts of the Spirit needed to fulfill the task at hand.

This general rule is especially verified in the case of Saint Joseph, the foster-father of our Lord and the husband of the Queen of our world, enthroned above the angels. He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: “Good and faithful servant enter into the joy of your Lord.”

What then is Joseph’s position in the whole Church of Christ? Is he not a man chosen and set apart? Through him and, yes, under him, Christ was fittingly and honorably introduced into the world. Holy Church in its entirety is indebted to the Virgin Mother because through her it was judged worthy to receive Christ. But after her we undoubtedly owe special gratitude and reverence to Saint Joseph.

In him the Old Testament finds its fitting close. He brought the noble line of patriarchs and prophets to its promised fulfillment. What the divine goodness had offered as a promise to them, he held in his arms.

Obviously, Christ does not now deny to Joseph that intimacy, reverence and very high honor which he gave him on earth, as a son to his father. Rather we must say that in heaven Christ completes and perfects all that he gave at Nazareth.

Now we can see how the last summoning words of the Lord appropriately apply to Saint Joseph: “Enter into the joy of your Lord.” In fact, although the joy of eternal happiness enters into the soul of a man, the Lord preferred to say to Joseph: “Enter into joy.” His intention was that the words should have a hidden spiritual meaning for us. They convey not only that this holy man possesses an inward joy, but also that it surrounds him and engulfs him like an infinite abyss.

Remember us, Saint Joseph, and plead for us to your foster-child. Ask your most holy bride, the Virgin Mary, to look kindly upon us, since she is the mother of him who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns eternally. Amen.

Today’s Mass Collect

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that by Saint Joseph’s intercession your Church may constantly watch over the unfolding of the mysteries of human salvation, whose beginnings you entrusted to his faithful care.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Over the past few days, I have been reflecting on this quote from C.S. Lewis’s Problem of Pain:

“You would like to know how I behave when I am experiencing pain, not writing books about it. You need not guess, for I will tell you; I am a great coward. But what is that to the purpose? When I think of pain—of anxiety that gnaws like fire and loneliness that spreads out like a desert, and the heartbreaking routine of monotonous misery, or again of dull aches that blacken our whole landscape or sudden nauseating pains that knock a man’s heart out at one blow, of pains that seem already intolerable and then are suddenly increased, of infuriating scorpion-stinging pains that startle into maniacal movement a man who seemed half dead with his previous tortures—it ‘quite o’ercrows my spirit’. If I knew any way of escape I would crawl through sewers to find it. But what is the good of telling you about my feelings? You know them already: they are the same as yours. I am not arguing that pain is not painful. Pain hurts. That is what the word means. I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made ‘perfect through suffering’10 is not incredible. To prove it palatable is beyond my design.” CS Lewis

We all experience pain.

Some pain and suffering are greater than others, but none of us is immune to the agonizing, unanswerable realities of this life. At times, our wounds come through the sins of others, especially those closest to us. Other times, they come through loss, illness, confusion, and trials. Most of the time, these things make no sense. We have no answers for their causes. We are stunned. Voiceless. We sit in a kind of stupor, wondering what in the world is happening and why.

Let’s be honest: suffering is the ultimate kick in the teeth. It strips away our illusions of control and leaves us poor before Christ. The only thing we can do is cry out.

It may sound cliché, but turning our eyes to Christ is the only thing we can do. Christ is the one who entered suffering freely. As Isaiah says, Christ bore rejection, injustice, and death itself. None of it was deserved. Zilch. Christ not only carried the physical pain, but also the weight of the collective sin of the world. It was an act of total abandonment to God. Christ asks us to do the same, even when we do not understand why. O Lord, why is total surrender so difficult?

Today, may we gaze upon our Lord and pray, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.’

In the holy Eucharist, we can walk through everything life brings our way.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Two Masters

Jesus says we cannot serve two masters. We will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. This verse always feels like a punch in the gut. We live in a world where we are trying to pursue virtue while battling the sinful self. Lent is a gift in which Christ asks us to fast, give alms, and pray. It is an invitation to enter into the spiritual battle and give over to God what is rightfully his—our entire self.

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Matthew 6:24 RSV

Of course, this is easier said than done. This complete surrender is not only hard, but it can discourage us to the point where we are tempted to give up and give in.

This past week in Evening Prayer, there was a scripture reading from Philippians. It’s the verse in which Paul asks us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12-15). Who wants to be fearful and trembling? But if you read those verses and sit with them, they are actually comforting. If only we will stop belly aching and arguing (not only with ourselves and others), God will put the will and the action into us. If we can surrender, be quiet, stop the obsession with control, and say to Christ, ‘alright, I give up, it’s your will, not mine,’ we will experience an innocence and grace that will give us the peace that passes all understanding.

That same struggle with control is exactly where temptation often gets subtle: it doesn’t always look like open rebellion, but like the “reasonable” choice to keep everything planned and thoroughly organized.

As I was in prayer this morning thinking about this, I was reminded of Joseph Ratzinger’s warning above about how easily we can prefer the “reasonable decision” and a tidy, organized world over letting God interfere with our essential purposes.

The tempter is not so crude as to suggest to us directly that we should worship the devil. He merely suggests that we opt for the reasonable decision, that we choose to give priority to a planned and thoroughly organized world, where God may have his place as a private concern but must not interfere in our essential purposes. - Jesus of Nazareth, Joseph Ratzinger

The Devil and his minions constantly whisper that we need control, that we need everything tidy in our lives, and that we need a perfect plan. So what do we do with Jesus? We make Him one of the things we control, categorize, and dismiss once we think we have it all figured out. The reality is that we don’t. Chaos, sin, and disorder are everywhere, and it can be disheartening. Jesus is asking us to let Him interfere in all of it.

This is surrender. In giving everything to Him, we will find peace.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

There are eighteen major Rites in the Catholic Church, with eighteen different ways to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of which the Latin Rite is one. We should keep in mind that the Mass is essentially one and the same Apostolic Liturgy in all valid Rites. Aramaic was the common language of many Christians in the first four centuries of the Catholic Church. Syriac was one dialect of Aramaic and was used especially in the ancient Christian city of Edessa, at the same location on the Daysan River as the modern city of Urfa in Turkey. Edessa became a major Christian center of Greek and Syriac theological and philosophical thought but fell under Arab control in the middle of the seventh century. From Edessa, the Christian evangelization of Armenia in the third century was very successful, and Armenia became the first Christian nation in 301. The Armenian alphabet was then invented at Edessa at the beginning of the fifth century.

The Catholic Church grew through the language of Syriac and spread all the way to Persia and India, and even to parts of China, as did the ancient syncretistic religion of Manichaeism. In the fourth century the Armenian Rite developed under the influence of the Syriac Rite. The Syriac Christians were very interested in Greek culture and translated much of Greek literature into Syriac. An academic requirement for the study of Greek Patristics to this day is to learn to read Syriac as well as Greek. Syriac remained the language of most Christians in the East until the rise of Islam in the sixth century, when Arabic became the vernacular and Syriac and Armenian Christians fell under Muslim rule. The success of Manichaeism and the opposing rise of Islam in the East led directly to the decline of Syriac Christianity. The early Syriac Rite was geographically much larger than both the Latin and Byzantine Rites.

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 had condemned both the Nestorian and the Monophysite Christological errors. Nestorianism emphasizes the humanity of Jesus to the exclusion of his divinity and posits two distinct persons, one human and the other divine, having separate natures that are united accidently, while Monophysitism emphasizes the divinity of Jesus and maintains that he has only one nature, which is either essentially divine or a synthesis of divine and human attributes. The Confession of Chalcedon provides a very clear statement on the human and the divine natures of Christ, hypostatically united in his divine Person:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body, consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the manhood, in all things like unto us, but without sin, begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the manhood, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως – in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter), the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the properties of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person (prosopon) and one Subsistence (hypostasis), not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only begotten God (μονογενῆ Θεόν), the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

Armenian Christians have always had various conflicting and shifting loyalties to the ancient Christologies that include Monophysitism, Chalcedonianism, and Miaphysitism, with the latter proposing that Christ is both fully divine and fully human in one essentially composite nature. The Armenian Church is independent and autocephalous, tracing its origins to the missionary endeavors of the Apostles Thaddaeus and Bartholomew, but its bishops were originally under the Patriarch of Antioch and the See of Caesarea in Cappadocia. The Armenian monk and theologian St Gregory of Narek (950-1003) was involved in the founding and development of the Monastery of Narek (Narekavank) on the shores of Lake Van when Armenia was an independent kingdom after being liberated from Muslim rule. He was the abbot there, and he and his monks were sympathetic to Chalcedonianism.

In the eleventh century, openness towards Rome began. The Catholicos [Principal Bishop] Gregory II made a pilgrimage to Rome to honour the relics of the apostles Peter and Paul, and in the subsequent years the various Catholicoi acknowledged the Pontiff as Peter’s Successor. From 1205, a number of Catholicos received the pallium in Rome. In the fourteenth century Franciscan and Dominican missionaries arrived in Armenia and established religious centres, but problems with the local hierarchies led to a fracture in 1441, the year in which the Armenian hierarchy split into two branches, Sis and Etchmiadzin. In the eighteenth century there was a religious and cultural reawakening thanks to the priest Mekhit’ar who, after converting to Catholicism, founded a congregation in Constantinople but was persecuted and sought refuge in the island of St. Lazarus in Venice. In 1740 a synod of Armenian bishops gathered in Rome to elect the first Catholic patriarch of Armenian rite, established provisionally in Kraim, Lebanon; in 1742 a new seat of the Armenian Catholic patriarchate was instituted in Bzommar, Lebanon. It transferred to Constantinople in 1866 but returned to Bzommar in 1925, where it remains to this day. (Holy See Press Office, N. 160623b, 2016-06-23, “A Brief History of the Church in Armenia,” https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/06/23/160623b.pdf)

During World War I from 1915 to 1917 about one million Armenian Christians were targeted and exterminated by the Ottomans in Turkey, which is regarded as the first major holocaust of the 20^th century (the actual number of deaths is disputable, but the fact of the deportation and violence is undeniable). Many other such holocausts were to follow. Adolf Hitler, for example, imitated the pattern of extermination and used it against millions of Jews in Europe, calling it “The Armenian Solution.” The Monastery of Narek was abandoned in 1915 and demolished around 1951. A mosque now stands on its location. Veneration of St Gregory of Narek has never waned, and his writings were recommended to the Universal Church by Pope St John Paul II, who signed a joint declaration with His Holiness the Catholicos of All the Armenians, Karekin II, affirming that the Armenian Church and the Roman Catholic Church have a common origin. St Gregory of Narek was then declared the 36^th Doctor of the Church by Pope Francis in 2015.

As a holy theologian St Gregory of Narek composed powerful intercessory prayers in his Book of Lamentations and was influenced by St Gregory of Nyssa and the apophatic tradition. Like many other apophatic theologians of the East and the West, he wrote a commentary on The Song of Songs or The Blessing of Blessings, as he called it. In Christian theology, there are two fundamental and complementary ways to grasp something of the mystery of God—the positive way and the negative way—which are then reconciled in the analogical way of eminence and transcendence. Positive theology proceeds by way of the dogmatic affirmations which can made about God, while negative theology proceeds by way of the difference between God and created beings and emphasizes the ineffable knowledge that existential union with Christ by faith, hope, and love brings to the human heart. These two ways are complementary and should be integrated. The abstract language of dogma and the mystical language of poetry are both valid means of knowing God and should not be set in false opposition. In the ascent of our minds and hearts to the presence of God in our souls by nature and grace, the positive and negative modes of theology work together to help us to grow in holiness and to receive an even higher knowledge of God through the transformation of our capacity to participate in his divine Wisdom and Love. This higher mystical knowledge is attained only when God reveals his divine Presence to us in our souls.

The purpose of Christian prayer under the effects of grace is to surrender to the difficult but delightful spiritual transformation of the mode of the receiver. Corresponding to the positive and negative modes of theology are the two fundamental modes of prayer: the kataphatic way and the apophatic way. Both are essential to the transforming union of the soul with God. Kataphatic prayer is active and proceeds by way of images, concepts, words, devotions, creation, truth, goodness, beauty, and discursive reason. Apophatic prayer proceeds simply by way of the divine love and that God infuses in our souls through Christ and the Holy Spirit. The integrated practice of the active and passive modes of prayer in union with Christ ordinarily gives rise to mystical prayer, which is fully contemplative and directly infused by God. The ultimate goal of Christian prayer is a continuous loving trinitarian communion with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. A transformation of the heart is required because in the conditions of sin and attachment to sensible goods we do not naturally or easily attend to God in loving communion with his Presence in the soul. The transformation of the heart is possible only by personal effort and the help of grace. The spiritual life of prayer is therefore a battle, for we must struggle against ourselves, the world, and demons. Spiritual marriage between Christ and the soul is the Biblical and analogical representation of the struggle to overcome temptations and vices, to acquire self-mastery and virtues, and to remain faithful and attentive to God and his inspirations. This is the supernatural goal of every true disciple of Christ. Ultimately it is Christ who makes this goal attainable, and he offers his help to everyone who sincerely seeks God above all things in every state and walk of life.

St Gregory of Narek is a reliable spiritual guide who uses the Biblical language of analogy and allegory to write beautifully and poetically about the existential apophatic dialogue and communion of love between Christ and the soul.

Blessed are they who are worthy of the unfading crown and are wedded to Christ, for they will share His crown in the endless kingdom of Christ.

“How beautiful and delightful you have become; love to your delicacy![sic]” [the Bridegroom says to the Bride in The Blessing of Blessings.] Look precisely at the praises listed for all the Bride’s senses; see how, having listed them one by one and praised them, [Christ the Bridegroom] summarizes them again, by saying how beautiful and delightful you have become. The real beauty of a human being is to cause all one’s senses to serve God, and to divinize them by drawing near to God, by participating in the divine works, in order to become worthy of hearing such words from Christ the Bridegroom: “You have become beautiful and delightful to me.”

What immeasurable bliss! By the mouth of God to be professed beautiful and delightful to Him whom all the saints, apostles and prophets desired, the martyrs and ascetics, and the vardapets [teachers] of the Church with all her clergy. Becoming the Daughter and Bride of God, they forgot their people and their fathers’ house (Ps 44:11); becoming strangers to the world and whatever is in this world, they became delightful through their virtuous ways of life, and were loved by the Groom, who said, “Love to your delicacy!”; that is, “I love your great delicacy just as bodily bridegrooms love their physically delicate brides.” (The Blessing of Blessings: Gregory of Narek’s Commentary on the Song of Songs, translated with an introduction and notes by Roberta R. Ervine, Cistercian Publications, 2007, p. 181)

St Gregory of Narek also clearly explains that the foundation of this spiritual communion of the soul with Christ is Eucharistic Communion and the imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

By what was the Bride empowered to be a fellow traveler on Christ’s way? By the awesome mystery of Communion—by the body and the blood of Christ which He gave to us for strength.

“He made us bold to drink with our lips and break with our teeth that on which you the angels, you sisters and queens, did not dare to gaze; we were allowed to break with our teeth Him of whom no bone was broken on the Cross, as the Prophet had predicted aforetime (Ps 33:21). In our earthly incinerated flesh we are not consumed by the uncontainable and flaming Fire, whereas you angels are not able to look upon it—nor do you dare to. I have become the container for the Uncontainable, like the Theotokos, who received Him into Her womb and was not burned, and like her archetype the burning bush.” Thus does the Bride boast before the angels; as it were, boasting in the unspeakable gift of the Groom. Going on she adds, “I am my Beloved’s, and His returning is to me.” That is, having been joined to Him through this food, I am His and He is mine. As the Lord Himself said in the Gospel (Jn 6:56), “Whoever eats my body and drinks my blood will live in Me and I in him.” (The Blessing of Blessings, p. 185)

The nuptial mystical theology of St Gregory of Narek is the same Catholic doctrine that we find in the Christian apophatic tradition as a whole. Consider for example the following explanation of the Bridal symbol in nuptial mystical theology of St John of the Cross, which is offered by St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein):

This image is not an allegory. When the soul is called the Bride of God, there is not only a relationship of similarity between two things which permits one to be designated by the other. There is, much more, such an intimate union between the image and the reality that it is almost impossible to speak of them any longer as a duality. Turned around: the meaning of the expression, being engaged [to be married] has nowhere as fitting and perfect a fulfillment as in the love relationship of God with the soul. That is the hallmark of a symbol-relationship in the strict and actual sense. The relationship of the soul to God as God foresaw it from all eternity as the goal of her creation, simply cannot be more fittingly designated than as a nuptial bond. Once one has grasped that, then the image and the reality directly exchange their roles: the divine bridal relationship is recognized as the original and actual bridal relationship, and all human nuptial relationships appear as imperfect copies of this archetype—just as the Fatherhood of God is the archetype of all fatherhood on earth. By reason of this copy-relationship, the human bridal relationship becomes useful as a symbolic expression of the divine, and in view of this function that which is a purely human relationship in actual life takes second place. Its actual reality has its highest reason for existence in that it can give expression to a divine mystery (Ephesians 5:23 ff). (St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, OCD, The Science of the Cross, translated by Sr Josephine Koeppel, OCD, ICS Publications, 2002, pp. 242-243)

Through the Sacraments of the Church and the intercessory prayers of St Gregory of Narek, the 36^th Doctor of the Church, let us renew our personal efforts daily to surrender unconditionally to the transforming power of grace and thus to enter more completely into mystical dialogue and spiritual communion with Christ.

The Collect for the Memorial of St Gregory of Narek, February 27

Almighty Ever-living God, who were pleased to imbue with mystical doctrine St. Gregory of Narek, the teacher and glory of the Armenian people, grant us by his teaching to learn the art of speaking with you and constantly to fortify our life with the Sacraments of the Church, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever, amen.

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About Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, PhD

Deacon Tracy Jamison was raised in a Christian family as the son of a Scotch-Irish evangelical minister in the Campbellite tradition. As an undergraduate he majored in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Cincinnati Christian University, where his parents had been educated. At this institution he met Joyce, who was completing a degree in Church Music, and after graduation they entered the covenant of Christian marriage in 1988. Through the study of philosophy and the writings of the Early Church Fathers, Tracy was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1992. Under the influence of the theological writings of St. John Paul II he began to study the works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross and entered formation as a Secular Carmelite of the Teresian Reform. In 1999 he completed the doctoral program in Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, and in 2002 he made his definitive profession as a Secular Carmelite. In 2010 he was ordained as a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Currently he is an associate professor of philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West.

© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC

Look Up

To thee I lift up my eyes, O thou who art enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he have mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Too long our soul has been sated with the scorn of those who are at ease, the contempt of the proud. Psalm 123 (RSV)

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus were walking away, away from Jerusalem, away from hope. They truly believed God had failed to accomplish what He promised. Downcast, their eyes were fixed on disappointment. “But we had hoped…” Hope was in the past tense.

This is us. We live like this sometimes. In fact, more often than we’d like to admit.

Today’s Psalm of Ascent (123) teaches a great movement of the heart: look up.

We have a tendency, if we are not vigilant, to look in the wrong direction for meaning, help, and purpose. We look horizontally. We seek approval, security, toward the promise of being understood. This often turns inward as we hang on to our interpretations and our own wounded narratives.

The psalmist says to lift your eyes. Not towards the current circumstance but to the one enthroned in heaven.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that: Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or “out of the depths” of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that “we do not know how to pray as we ought,” are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. “Man is a beggar before God.” (CCC 2559)

Psalm 123 is precisely that movement. A raising.

The eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, not in fear, but in expectation. They wait for mercy. They trust provision. They depend.

All of us are dependent in some way whether it’s a spouse, a friend, a colleague, or even our community. But beneath every human dependence lies a deeper one: we are creatures. We live from another.

When we forget this, we become restless. When others treat us with contempt or indifference, something hardens in us. The psalm speaks honestly: “We have had more than enough of contempt.” The soul can become “sated” with scorn. Pride wounds. Hostility exhausts. The world often resists those who seek to live by God’s promises rather than its own.

And so we lower our gaze and stop expecting mercy.

Perhaps we can look to the Emmaus disciples as a model to follow. Even while they walked away, they remained in conversation. When Christ opened the Scriptures to them and broke the bread, the scales fell off. They recognized Him.

They rose and returned to Jerusalem. When the direction of their bodies changed, the direction of their gazed changed.

Psalm 123 asks us: Where are my eyes fixed today? Am I staring at what has disappointed me? At the contempt of others. My own interpretation of events? Or am I lifting my eyes?

To look up is not denial. It is trust. It is the quiet decision to say: My help does not come from below. It comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth (cf. Ps 121:2).

Today, look up. Grace will meet you—our Risen Lord is walking right beside you. Thanks be to God.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

In Year A of the Lectionary cycle, the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent is the Temptation of Jesus in the desert (Matthew 4:1–11). When I read this Gospel, it always brings to mind Fr. Smith, the protagonist of Walker Percy’s The Thanatos Syndrome. Fr. Smith is an odd character. He is not unlike many of the saints we read about, particularly the early desert fathers of the Church. These early saints practiced what we would consider strange, even severe, asceticism. A Syrian monk by the name of Saint Simeon the Stylite is one such saint. Percy, in fact, models Fr. Smith after Simeon in his novel.

Saint Simeon the Stylite lived atop a narrow platform sixty feet in the air for thirty-seven years, with only a basket lowered for provisions. It was his way of practicing penance: praying, fasting, and bowing in prostration before God. It reminds me of those who built the Tower of Babel. These early technocrats rebelled against God, straining upward to compete with the One who created them. Saint Simeon climbed his tower for precisely the opposite reason: to detach from the world, to crush the pride within him, to come before God with nothing left to hide behind.

Fr. Smith, like Saint Simeon, does not climb a pillar but a fire lookout tower. This is his modern pillar, where he watches, prays, and does penance for a broken world. And the world Fr. Smith inhabits is our world. It is a world adrift in atheistic scientism, spiritual emptiness, and technological drunkenness. Both men embrace voluntary suffering as a means of reparation. They are not attempting to fix the world through systems or ideology. They are trying to conquer it from within; through their own renunciation, through the slow dying to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).

Yesterday’s Gospel shows us why this matters so deeply. They are the three fundamental disorders that still unravel human hearts today. When Satan offers bread to a starving Jesus, it is the temptation to place the needs of the body above the will of the Father. When he spreads out all the kingdoms of the world, it is the temptation toward wealth, power, and possession. And when he urges Jesus to throw himself from the parapet so the angels might catch him, it is the temptation toward recognition and glory from men. Jesus refuses each one. He knows that genuine Messiahship does not come by shortcuts but comes by the Cross. And he knows that glory comes from God alone.

The early Church Fathers saw in all of this the figure of the New Adam. Unlike Adam, who abused the freedom God gave him, Jesus was obedient and in his obedience, restored what had been lost. He fulfilled Israel’s vocation perfectly, the vocation Israel could never manage on its own. Jesus makes all things new (Revelation 21:5)! Thanks be to God.

This is why Lent is not merely a spiritual exercise. It is a genuine participation in Christ’s own victory in the desert. By fasting, praying, and giving alms, we enter the same battle Jesus entered and we enter it with him.

Last week we reflected on Psalm 121. This was the Psalm of Ascent that was sung on the road up to Jerusalem. The terrain was dangerous. Its promise is simple and strong: “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.” (Ps. 121:8). Whether Simeon on his pillar, Fr. Smith on his tower, or each of us in our own desert, Christ watches over us. Christ walks with us.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

The Silence of the Desert

There is a story told of St. Anthony the Great. When he first went into the desert, he was not immediately surrounded by peace. Rather, he was assaulted by waves of thoughts, memories, fears, temptations, and regrets. What was supposed to be a place of refuge and silence became a place of noise. It was the noise of his own mind. One day, after a long interior struggle, he cried out to the Lord, “Where were You?” And Christ answered him: “Anthony, I was here. I was waiting to see your struggle.”

Saint Anthony learned a valuable lesson: silence is not the absence of noise, but the place where the heart learns to remain with Christ in the midst of interior noise.

Our focus this past week has been on the pilgrims’ journey to Jerusalem, the joy accompanying their arrival in the holy city, and the sense of fulfillment that this journey brings.

Today is a good day to pause. To attempt to enter into a brief silence.

There is a tradition in ancient Christianity of going to the desert. In the fourth century, men and women left behind the noise of cities and withdrew into silence. They did not go there to escape the world, but to encounter Christ more deeply. They sought humility, repentance, fraternal charity, and purity of heart.

The Catechism reminds us: The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for: The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator. (CCC 27)

The desire for God can be buried under distraction. The desert fathers discovered that if the exterior world grows quiet, the interior world becomes louder. This is where the wisdom of the desert fathers can speak to us.

The Desert Fathers used the Greek word logismos to describe this noise. A logismos is not simply a thought. No, it is a thought that lingers. These thoughts begin to dialogue with us, often incessantly. They become a suggestion that pulls our attention away from God. If we are not on guard, these thoughts gradually begin to shape our heart.

Evagrius of Pontus suggested a dangerous pattern can develop that will eventually lead us to sin. Here is the pattern: A thought appears. We entertain it. We begin to converse with it. It takes root in the heart. Then it leads to action. It becomes a habit. Then it forms our character.

What the Desert Fathers are teaching us is that sin rarely begins with a dramatic decision. It begins with an unnoticed thought. As the Epistle James writes, “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire; then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin” (Jas 1:14–15).

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the desert was a place free from temptation. No, the desert was the place where temptation became visible.

Life today is filled with so many great conveniences. But, it is saturated with noise. Our phones connect us with so many of these conveniences, yet, they rarely allow us to rest. Constant notifications, endless information. There is always something to read, to answer, to endlessly scroll.

When I go on pilgrimage, I make a simple decision: I do not use technology. I turn the phone off as I walk toward the next pilgrim stop in silence.

What is crazy is that at first it is uncomfortable. There is a sort of anxiousness in which something feels like it’s missing. It is weird to instinctively reach for the phone. It’s like there is a mindless search for distraction.

But slowly, usually after a few days, another reality emerges. Something feels different. The rhythm of walking becomes a sort of prayer. ‘Things’ settle down.

Yet, even when the phone is off, the mind continues speaking.

Comparison.

Resentment

Fantasy.

Fear.

Self-justification.

Old conversations.

Imagined and made up scenarios.

These logismoi are not merely passing thoughts. They are thoughts that are silently yelling—ENTERTAIN ME. These thoughts want a conversation. And if we are not attentive, it slowly shapes our perception, our emotions, and eventually our actions. It draws our attention away from the present moment. And yes, away from God. Silence does not eliminate the logismoi. It reveals them.

However, when they are revealed, they lose some of their power. We can say, “This is not from you, O Lord,” and return again to Him. In this way, the journey outward becomes a journey inward.

Perhaps today we can enter into a quieter space where we can hear the voice of Christ.

Silence is not about emptying ourselves into nothing. It is about creating space. It is the space to recognize which thoughts are not from God, and space to receive the thoughts that are.

My prayer for you today is to sit in silence. Even if it’s for a brief moment, it can be a place where if you listen closely, you will hear the voice of Christ.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

I Will Seek Your Good

“I will seek your good.” Ps 122:9

Yesterday, the pilgrim was still on the road, walking to Jerusalem. The journey was sustained by God’s loving protection. In today’s psalm, the pilgrim has arrived at the city of God. The anxiety of dangerous travel has now been replaced by joy: “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’”

The word that carries this psalm is peace. Peace is not just the absence of conflict, but fullness. Security. Prosperity. Harmony. Unity. It is a life rightly ordered under God. Jerusalem is described as a city “bound firmly together” (v. 3). The idea here is that when the heart is ordered to God and to one another, the result is unity; the result is peace.

The Catechism reminds us that peace is the “tranquility of order” (CCC 2304). This is not a kind of passivity, but rather the right relationship one has with God and neighbor. This idea is made concrete when the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christ the King. On that day, Psalm 122 is used as the responsorial psalm to proclaim that Christ does not reign through domination, but from the Cross, establishing a kingdom of peace.

Have you ever noticed the deep sense of calm when entering a church? There is a particular stillness that settles in the heart. I often find myself looking for the sanctuary lamp—the lighted candle near the tabernacle. It is a reminder that He is here, that He is present in the Blessed Sacrament. The King of Peace dwells here in the city.

The Catechism tells us that “the Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being.” Where Christ is present, there is peace. This peace is not sentimental. It does not deny suffering, but flows from the certainty that God dwells among us.

I love the ending of this psalm: “For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.” Peace is not only something to receive. Peace is something to build. To give. Saint Thomas Aquinas defines love as to will the good of the other (ST I–II, q. 26, a. 4). That is exactly what this verse expresses. Perhaps this is what Christ is calling us to today. With all the factions, grievances, and cliques that we experience each day, may our outward movement be one in which we seek the good of the other.

Saint Charles de Foucauld once desired to convert the whole Sahara. Yet before he could become a missionary to others, he underwent his own interior conversion. God transformed his heart. He no longer sought visible success; he desired to become a “universal brother.” In the hiddenness of the desert, he fulfilled this psalm. He sought the good of those before him. May we do the same for the sake of the house of the Lord our God.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Our Help Is in the Name of the Lord

“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” — Psalm 121:1–4

I think there is something really simple and honest with the Psalmist’s opening question: From where does my help come? Most of us, if we are being completely honest, carry this question in our hearts. The question within us is often silent but we carry it with us through the ordinary difficulties of each day. And the answer the Psalmist gives is not some lengthy theological diatribe. No, it is a quiet and confident declaration–my help comes from the Lord.

I remember a dear Dominican priest who closed every meeting with those exact words. He would quietly exclaim, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Perhaps today, we can say the same when we finish a particular task or find something difficult to start. It is a stark and gentle reminder that everything we carry, everything we face, rests in hands far more capable than our own.

The Psalms of Ascent were written for pilgrims who were journeying to Jerusalem. The roads were long and unsafe. Weariness sets in. Dangers lurked. The pilgrim would eventually succumb to exhaustion and sleep, God would not. “He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”

This is no small comfort. We know from the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel how cruelly the prophets of Baal were mocked: “Where is your god? Perhaps he is sleeping. Perhaps he has wandered off” (cf. 1 Kings 18:27). Isn’t the contrast striking? The gods of this world — the idols we sometimes construct from our anxieties and our plans — they cannot watch over us. They are, in the end, powerless and inattentive.

God is not absent. He is not silent. Though it may feel at times He is in hiding and the heavens have gone quiet, He is asking us to “look up.” (Psalm 121:1)

Psalm 139 appeared in Evening Prayer yesterday. Something about today’s Psalm brought it to mind.

“Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” — Psalm 139:7–10

God is in the heights. He is in the depths. In the morning. In the very edges of the sea. He holds us with a firm and tender grip. He will not let go. Psalm 121 affirms this truth from a different angle: the God who made heaven and earth is the same God who watches over your small, simple life. This is not an abstraction. It is a fact meant to settle something deep within us.

Christ Is the Crutch We Need

Have you ever sprained or twisted your ankle? You know the pain and frustration. The slightest weight on that foot sends pain shooting through you. A walking boot, a crutch, a steadying arm becomes everything in those moments. You cannot get far without help, and you know it.

Perhaps this is not such a bad image for the Christian life. We are pilgrims on a road, and the road is sometimes rough. There are days when we limp. There are seasons when we cannot bear full weight on our own strength. Christ is not standing at a distance and asking us to deal with it ourselves. No, He offers Himself. It may seem sentimental and cliche, but He is the crutch we lean on. And there is no shame in that. It is precisely when we acknowledge our need that His help becomes most real to us. My help comes from the Lord. May this reminder be the first and constant truth of this Lenten pilgrimage.

Whatever your road looks like ahead, I encourage you to “lift up your eyes.” Christ has not wandered off. He has not grown weary. He is watching over you, right now, with a love that does not sleep.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

In my distress I cry to the Lord, that he may answer me: “Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.” What shall be given to you? And what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? A warrior’s sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree! Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war! Psalm 120 (RSV)

To live in the world is to live as pilgrims.

So much of modern life is filled with comforts. It becomes difficult to long for something when we are so attached to the things of the world. Whether it’s our scrolling addiction to social media, or television and the countless series on streaming platforms, or the myriad of food choices we can pick from. If we are not careful we will forget that we are in exile and will stop crying out. Maybe this Lent, we can detach from some particular comfort or comforts and recover a sense of longing.

The pilgrim in Psalm 120 cries out to the Lord for deliverance. “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar.” These two lands with funny names symbolize a world not at peace with God. Like us, the psalmist is displaced—not only geographically but spiritually. We live in a world not at peace with God. The Apostle Paul reminds us that “while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord” (2 Cor 5:6). Peter tells us to conduct ourselves with fear throughout the time of our exile (1 Pet 1:17).

The world the psalmist lives in is not different from ours. It’s a world full of deceit and division. A world saturated with words. The constant barrage and noise of news, commentary, accusation, outrage. It’s never ending. Yes, between Meshech and Kedar lies a land of factions, suspicion, and distortion.

What are we to do?

We must cry out to God, who can deliver us from lying lips and a deceitful tongue (Ps 120:2). The world and so much of the chaos is a war of tongues, of speech. Sadly, it’s often our own. Proverbs warns: “There are six things which the Lord hates… a lying tongue… a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers” (Prov 6:16–19). James declares that the tongue is “a fire… a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:6–8).

Today is a good time to turn and look inward.

It’s easy to lament the lies around us but harder to confront the disorder within. With what tongue do I bless the Lord? And with what tone do I speak of others made in His image?

Lent asks for a door and bolt for the mouth.

It calls for silence, restraint, purification of speech. As the Catechism teaches, offenses against truth wound justice and charity (cf. CCC 2464–2470). Jesus, help us be truthful. In seeking truth, we find peace.

So, today’s psalm (120) begins the ascent not with strength, but with honesty. We are not home yet. The world wounds. Words hurt. Peace is fragile. But the first step towards Jerusalem is simple and decisive: “In my distress I called to the Lord.” And He answered.

Today, as we begin our Lenten journey, let us not silence our distress. Our cry to Him is the beginning of ascent.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

In 2024, I walked the Camino Francés from St. Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. In 2025, I walked what I called the Camino Saint Dominic from Madrid to Segovia. I receive many graces on pilgrimage: silence, the ability to slow down, and deeper prayer. Pilgrimage is a Christian tradition rooted in Israel’s practice of annual ascents to Jerusalem.

Pilgrimage is essential in our noisy world, where chaos can spiritually choke us and drown out Christ’s voice. While age, physical limitations, cost, or time may prevent formal pilgrimages like the Camino, we can practice pilgrimage through simple daily walks or other spiritual journeys.

This Lent, I will be exploring a type of spiritual pilgrimage using the Psalms of Ascent as a framework. My prayers is that this spiritual pilgrimage is a movement towards a holy encounter with Christ. This encounter is an encounter of holy friendship.

Why the Psalms of Ascent?

The Israelites made annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast days—Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles—at the Temple. Three times a year, God’s people ascended to Jerusalem to praise him, singing Psalms as they went. Worship requires movement. The pilgrims moved toward God, praising him in song. The fifteen Psalms of Ascent centered on mercy, exile, hope, trust, and blessings. This “going up” together surely shaped the pilgrim’s interior life, since worship is never an isolated event.

Join me this Lent

We often think of Lent as a season of restraint. There is something holy in giving up what we’re attached to. But what if we approached Lent as a journey—a “going up” where we walk with Christ toward Jerusalem? Christ asks us to take up our cross daily and walk with him, not as mere observers but as companions on the road. Lent invites us into this rhythm.

The Church has always understood herself as a pilgrim people. The Psalms of Ascent give us the language to walk with him. Over the next 40 days, I will reflect on these psalms, hoping for a deeper friendship and encounter with Christ. I invite you to walk with me and to share this journey with others.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Today is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes

In March 2019, Pam, Catherine, and I went to Lourdes to pray and discern. I went to give thanks to Saint Bernadette for answered prayers.

A deep peace resides there—an intense quiet that sits in the deepest part of the heart. The Blessed Mother is the mother of peace. She intercedes for us and gives us Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Jesus, lead me to the quiet place of rest, where the noise of the world is silent.

On this feast day, may we turn our hearts to our Mother, to seek her guidance and intercession.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

From the Breviloquium of St Bonaventure

an excerpt

The substance and fruit of holy Scripture is very specific: the fullness of eternal happiness. For this is what Scripture is – its words are words of eternal life, and it is written not just so that we should believe, but specially so that we should possess eternal life in which we may see, and love, and have all our desires fulfilled. When they are fulfilled, then we shall know the superabundant love that comes from knowledge, and so we shall be filled with all the fullness of God. God’s Scripture tries to lead us to this fullness, and to the truth of the preaching of the apostles. It is to this end, with this intention, that we should study holy Scripture, and teach it, and hear it.

If we are to follow the direct path of Scripture and come straight to the final destination, then right from the beginning – when simple faith starts to draw us towards the light of the Father – our hearts should kneel down and ask the Father to give us, through his Son and the Holy Spirit, true knowledge of Jesus and of his love. Once we know him and love him like this, we shall be made firm in faith and deeply rooted in love, and we can know the breadth, length, depth and height of holy Scripture. That news can then lead us to the full knowledge and overwhelming love of the most holy Trinity. The desires of the saints draw them towards the Trinity, in which all that is good and true is and finds its completion.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

From an account of the martyrdom of Saint Paul Miki and his companions, by a contemporary writer

You shall be my witnesses

The crosses were set in place. Father Pasio and Father Rodriguez took turns encouraging the victims. Their steadfast behavior was wonderful to see. The Father Bursar stood motionless, his eyes turned heavenward. Brother Martin gave thanks to God’s goodness by singing psalms. Again and again he repeated: “Into your hands, Lord, I entrust my life.” Brother Francis Branco also thanked God in a loud voice. Brother Gonsalvo in a very loud voice kept saying the Our Father and Hail Mary.

Our brother, Paul Miki, saw himself standing now in the noblest pulpit he had ever filled. To his “congregation” he began by proclaiming himself a Japanese and a Jesuit. He was dying for the Gospel he preached. He gave thanks to God for this wonderful blessing and he ended his “sermon” with these words: “As I come to this supreme moment of my life, I am sure none of you would suppose I want to deceive you. And so I tell you plainly: there is no way to be saved except the Christian way. My religion teaches me to pardon my enemies and all who have offended me. I do gladly pardon the Emperor and all who have sought my death. I beg them to seek baptism and be Christians themselves.”

Then he looked at his comrades and began to encourage them in their final struggle. Joy glowed in all their faces, and in Louis’ most of all. When a Christian in the crowd cried out to him that he would soon be in heaven, his hands, his whole body strained upward with such joy that every eye was fixed on him.

Anthony, hanging at Louis’ side, looked towards heaven and called upon the holy names – “Jesus, Mary!” He began to sing a psalm: “Praise the Lord, you children!” (He learned it in catechism class in Nagasaki. They take care there to teach the children some psalms to help them learn their catechism).

Others kept repeating “Jesus, Mary!” Their faces were serene. Some of them even took to urging the people standing by to live worthy Christian lives. In these and other ways they showed their readiness to die.

Then, according to Japanese custom, the four executioners began to unsheathe their spears. At this dreadful sight, all the Christians cried out, “Jesus, Mary!” And the storm of anguished weeping then rose to batter the very skies. The executioners killed them one by one. One thrust of the spear, then a second blow. It was over in a very short time.

Today’s Mass Collect

O God, strength of all the Saints, who through the Cross were pleased to call the Martyrs Saint Paul Miki and companions to life, grant, we pray, that by their intercession we may hold with courage even until death to the faith that we profess.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.