We Can Be Witnesses to the Power of the Resurrection
In 1918, a young German intellectual named Edith Stein was invited to spend a month in the city of Göttingen with her recently widowed friend, Anne Reinach. Edith had studied philosophy under Anne’s husband, Adolph, and Anne had asked Edith to help get her husband’s papers in order. Although eager to go, Edith was nervous. In what state of mind would she find this grieving widow?
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Comment | Posted Apr 03, 2021
On February 25, 1954, a young man fleeing a botched robbery in Paris panicked and shot wildly. He killed a policeman and seriously wounded a bystander. The would-be thief was arrested, condemned to death by guillotine, and confined in La Santé maximum-security prison. An atheist when he entered, he experienced a conversion so profound that, on the night before his execution, he wrote, “My head will fall glorious ignominy with heaven for its prize! I am happy.” The lost soul of Jacques Fesch had been salvaged in prison by Christ. More »
Sixteen years old and from a well-to-do family, this teen never applied himself to his studies, let alone took his Christian faith seriously.
And yet, through one of those dramatic reversals of fortune that God sometimes allows, the sluggish youth met the Lord and went to become Ireland’s great evangelizer, St. Patrick.
Patrick himself tells the story in his moving
Confession. Unlike the many legends that sprang up after his death, this authentic account of his conversion and development is a window into the life of a real person. In it, Patrick speaks honestly of his regrets, struggles, and successes, and always in a tone of heartfelt thanks that “the Lord had mercy on me thousands and thousands of times.” In this fifth-century bishop, we touch the faith of someone who threw himself completely on God’s love someone who inspires our own faith that, if we accept it, divine love can transform and equip us for God’s service, too.