Garden of Graces

When We Fail Repentance, Discouragement, and Beginning Agai We have been learning to see the predominant fault, to practice the opposing virtue, to discern the movements of consolation and desolation, and to give our good intentions the structure of a simple rule. All of this work is real. Yet even with these helps, we will…

A Rule for Ordinary Life Prayer, Order, and the Duties Before Us Restoration does not remain in moments of insight or fervent resolve. We may recognize a fault clearly, choose the opposing virtue sincerely, and even understand something about the interior battle, yet still discover that good intentions disappear under the pressure of an ordinary…

The Interior Battlefield Recognizing Consolation, Desolation, and Temptation As we begin to resist our predominant fault and practice the opposing virtue, something important happens: we become more sensitive to the movements within our own soul. The combat is not only about outward behavior. Thoughts, desires, fears, attractions, discouragements, and sudden impulses accompany the choices we…

The Opposing Virtue Fighting Sin by Practicing the Good Once we begin to recognize our predominant fault, the question naturally arises: how do we actually combat it? Recognition alone is not restoration. We may become very skilled at naming pride, vanity, impatience, or disordered appetite while continuing to repeat the same habits. The Catholic spiritual…

The Honest Soul Recognizing the Pattern Beneath the Sin A Companion to Discernment in an Age of Disorde In our last series, Discernment in an Age of Disorder, Sara and I began with a fairly simple premise. Much of the disorder that we see around us does not begin out there somewhere, in politics, institutions, or…