by Peter James | Feb 23, 2023 | Teresa of Lisieux
It was Christmas Eve in the year 1886. A fourteen-year-old girl attended midnight Mass with her family inside an enormous cathedral in France. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) was grieving her mother’s recent death and plagued with self-doubt. She wrote of worship that...
by Peter James | Feb 22, 2023 | Samuel Crossman
John Ireland was having lunch with a friend who asked him if he would compose a tune for the poem, “My Song is Love Unknown.” John reached for the menu and sketched out a tune in fifteen minutes. His friend published the poem as a hymn in 1918 and rescued...
by Peter James | Feb 21, 2023 | John Wesley
Imagine yourself sitting in a small gathering of Christians. The appointed leader asks the same questions of each participant. You know the questions beforehand since they are asked at every meeting. How will you answer when the questions are asked of you? 1. Am I...
by Peter James | Feb 20, 2023 | St. Francis of Assisi
It is commonly called The Prayer of St. Francis. I hate to burst the bubble, but there is no record of the prayer anywhere in Francis’ writings. The earliest mention of the prayer associated with Francis is in a 1912 French periodical. The prayer gained popularity...
by Peter James | Feb 19, 2023 | J. R. R. Tolkien
He was a young professor sitting at his home office grading papers. One student inadvertently left a page blank in his bluebook exam. The professor described what happened next. “I wrote in it, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.'” You may...
