Fr. Gabriel Gillen, OP

Have you ever realized just how small we are? I typically have this realization when I fly. As the plane climbs up into the air, I gaze in wonder at the landscape below. Mighty rivers winding and weaving in between hills seem like small streams. The bustling cityscape grinds along: babies being born, elderly dying, […]

Christians, the saying goes, are to be other Christs. By grace, Christians become more and more like Jesus. Yet Christians can be other Christs in a different (yet related!) respect as well. “Christ” is Greek for “anointed” (“Messiah” means the same in Hebrew), and Christians are anointed in rituals like Confirmation. Anointing has an Old […]

“The Cross is good because it is an abundant source of all kinds of delight and consolation. It brings joy, peace, and grace to the soul.” -St. Louis de Montfort (The Love of Eternal Wisdom, 95-96) Joy, peace, and grace. I do not associate joy and peace with the Cross. To find joy, peace, and […]

Christmas is over. The dramatic swing from eager anticipation of the most wonderful time of the year back to mundane reality can feel like whiplash. The lonely graveyard of discarded wrapping paper is simultaneously the fruit of a festive morning and a sharp contrast to the happy memories now in the past. This bleak reality […]

Diversity is baked into reality. Rocks, plants, and animals adorn the world in a vast array of species. The existence of many things and many kinds of things displays the manifold and infinite perfections of the Creator. Just as this diversity exists in nature, so it exists in the order of the supernatural, that is, […]

The redemptive sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross gives us the hope of eternal life with God and the final resurrection—the hope of fully enjoying God’s presence forever. In light of this wondrous hope, we Christians can find ourselves feeling guilty for our sadness. Instead of mourning the loss of a loved one, we […]

My last name, “Nee,” is quite odd—terribly short and simple and, yet, somehow often mispronounced (it’s just like “knee,” by the way, and should be distinguished from its heteronym). I’m stuck with it, but that’s okay. It ties me to my roots: my family background, my heritage, and the people who have known me by […]

If today English-speakers still hear about “the feast of Stephen,” we can probably thank one man: John Mason Neale.This nineteenth-century English churchman and poet once chanced upon the felicitous rhyming of the name “Stephen” and the adjective “even.” Thus, we presume, was born “Good King Wenceslas,” the lively Christmas carol. Thus also was commemorated the […]

What would it have been like to visit Bethlehem during the first week of Christ’s life? This is a question that, perhaps, has entered our mind when looking at a nativity scene or reading the infancy narratives. Even Christmas carols address this question—Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter” ponders, If I were a Shepherd, I […]

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Isa 9:2). Seven hundred years before the first Christmas, God gave these words through the prophet Isaiah. Many centuries passed until, just three months before this long awaited Christmas day, […]

It is ten days before Christmas. Decorations, lights, Christmas trees, and gift wrapping are all on our minds. Yet we often don’t spiritually prepare ourselves for the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ. One way we can prepare is through the sacred music of the Church. We all know the classic “O Come, O Come […]

Inescapable casualness. Perhaps I could even say carelessness. It’s a mark of our time. If you’ve graduated college in the last ten years, or even visited a college in the last ten years, you know what I mean. Furry flip flops. Cabin socks. Perhaps even a Comfy—for all the world to see. But for those […]