MSI Press Blog

  This week editor's choice:   Blest Atheist by Elizabeth Mahlou Book Description: As a young child, outraged by the hypocrisy she finds in a church that does nothing to alleviate the physical and sexual abuse she experiences on a regular basis, Beth delivers an accusatory youth sermon and gets her family expelled from the church. Having locked the door on God, Beth goes on to raise a family of seven children, learn 17 languages, and enjoy a career that takes her to NASA, Washington, and 24 countries. All the time, however, God keeps knocking at the door, protecting and blessing her, which she realizes only decades later. Ultimately, Beth finds God in a very simple yet most unusual way. A very human story, Blest Atheist encompasses the greatest literary themes of all time – alienation, redemption, and even the miraculous. The author’s life experiences, both tragic and tremendous, result in a spiritual journey containing significant ups and downs that ultimately yield gr...

  From Morning Prayer: “God of mercy, may our celebration of your Son’s resurrection help us experience its effect in our lives.” The Church never treats the Resurrection as a past event we simply remember. It is a present power we are meant to experience . This short prayer from Morning Prayer is deceptively simple, but it carries a profound invitation: the Resurrection is not only something Christ underwent — it is something meant to take effect in us. What is that “effect”? 1. The Resurrection restores our hope The first effect is interior: a shift from resignation to hope. The Resurrection tells us that no situation is final, no darkness is absolute, no tomb is truly sealed. When we pray this line, we are asking God to let that truth sink into the places where we have quietly given up — the relationships we think cannot heal, the habits we think cannot change, the grief we think we must simply carry alone. 2. The Resurrection reorders our identity If Christ has risen, then deat...

  Holy Saturday is the most easily overlooked day of the Triduum. It has no liturgy until nightfall, no sacraments, no proclamations. The tabernacle is empty. Christ is in the tomb. The Church keeps vigil in stillness. It is the one day in the Christian year when the Church feels what it is like to live without visible signs of God’s activity. This is not an accident. It is pedagogy. Holy Saturday teaches that God’s silence is not God’s absence . In Catholic tradition, Christ is not idle; He is descending to the dead, breaking open the realm of death from within. The world sees stillness; heaven sees movement. Waiting becomes the place where God is at work in ways we cannot yet perceive. Why Waiting Matters in Catholic Spirituality 1. Waiting trains the heart in hope Hope is not optimism. It is the decision to trust God when the outcome is not visible. Catholic theology insists that hope is forged precisely in the gap between promise and fulfillment. Waiting is where th...