Paul tells the Corinthians: "Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up. If anyone supposes he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know." Then the Gospel goes further than most of us are comfortable with: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you... be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." Being right isn't the point. Building something real is. Today's news has three stories about people quietly choosing to build.

The deeper reflection on today's readings - and a daily prayer for your household - is waiting in the & Altar app and at andaltar.com. More after the news.

📰 Quick Hits

1. Two Weeks From Today: Fulton Sheen's Beatification

Two weeks from today, on September 24, Venerable Fulton J. Sheen will be beatified at The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis - Cardinal Luis Tagle presiding, doors opening at 8 a.m., Mass at 2 p.m. Central. Roughly 45,000 pilgrims are expected from 48 states and 12 countries, and tickets remain available at celebratesheen.com. The Diocese of Peoria, where Sheen was ordained, is running a full week of pilgrimage events September 15-26, including nightly Holy Hours and visits to his tomb. It will make him one step from canonization - and the first American-born bishop to become a saint.

Faith Lens for the Home: Sheen reached millions through the most secular medium of his era, television, and never lost the substance underneath. Ask your family: "What's one talk or writing of Sheen's we could watch or read together before the 24th?" Even if you can't travel to St. Louis, the Mass will be livestreamed - put it on your calendar now.

2. A Married Couple With Nine Children Moves Closer to Sainthood

The Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints is now formally reviewing the life of Tomás and Paquita Alvira, a Spanish couple married in 1939 who raised nine children, buried one at age five, and stayed married until Tomás's death in 1992. Friends of their daughter said they'd see the couple walking down the street decades into their marriage and could tell "they still loved each other as when they were dating." Both later joined Opus Dei; their home was known for being what St. Josemaría Escrivá called "bright and cheerful." Their case, submitted to Rome this July, would make them among a small number of married couples the Church has proposed together as models of holiness.

Faith Lens for the Home: Love builds up - and the Alviras built an ordinary household for over fifty years, through grief, illness, and the daily grind of raising nine children, and it became the kind of love strangers noticed on the street. Ask your family: "What does it look like to keep choosing each other, in small ordinary ways, for fifty years?" That's the whole cause for canonization in one sentence.

3. Cardinal Pizzaballa Launches a New Forum for Peace in Jerusalem

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, formally launched "Within Your Gates: The Forum for the Universal Vocation of Jerusalem" last week, in partnership with the University of Notre Dame's Jerusalem center. Grown out of three years of closed workshops with scholars and practitioners from different faiths, the Forum will study the theological meaning of Jerusalem and "the language of conflict and reconciliation." Pizzaballa said: "The mission of earthly Jerusalem is to become the image and mirror of heavenly Jerusalem, a prophecy and promise of that universal reconciliation and peace which God desires for the whole human family. It is to this mission that we must return."

Faith Lens for the Home: Love your enemies, Jesus said - and a cardinal in one of the world's most contested cities just built an institution around exactly that command. Ask your family: "What would it look like for us to be a small 'forum for reconciliation' in our own home - a place where disagreements get worked through rather than avoided?" Pray tonight for Jerusalem and for everyone this Forum hopes to bring to the same table.

⛪ Family Saint Spotlight

St. Nicholas of Tolentino - September 10

Born in Italy around 1245, Nicholas joined the Augustinians as a young man and spent his priesthood almost entirely in one town, Tolentino, hearing confessions and caring for the sick and dying. He became known especially for his devotion to the souls in Purgatory, believed to have received visions urging him to pray and offer Masses for them, and is still invoked today - especially during Lent and November - as their advocate. He died in 1305 and was canonized in 1446. He is the patron of the holy souls, animals, and sailors.

Ask at dinner: "Nicholas spent his whole life praying for people he couldn't see or help in any other way - souls in Purgatory. Who is someone we should be praying for tonight that we can't do anything else for?"

✋ One Simple Action

Mark September 24 on your calendar for Fulton Sheen's beatification, even if you're watching from home. Pray for the Alvira family's cause, and for Jerusalem's new forum for reconciliation. Then choose one person - an enemy, in Jesus's blunt word, or just someone hard to love this week - and do one deliberate act of mercy toward them today.

📚 Read More

• Fulton Sheen beatification - two weeks away: Aleteia (https://aleteia.org/2026/08/28/just-under-4-weeks-until-fulton-sheen-is-beatified/) and Archdiocese of St. Louis ticketing (https://www.archstl.org/fulton-sheen-beatification-event-ticketing/) and Fulton Sheen Foundation statement (https://www.celebratesheen.com/news/additional-tickets)
• Tomás and Paquita Alvira canonization cause: Aleteia (https://aleteia.org/2026/09/06/spanish-married-couple-to-be-considered-for-canonization/) and Omnes Magazine (https://www.omnesmag.com/en/focus/evangelization/jose-carlos-martin-de-la-hoz-explains-the-keys-to-the-holiness-of-the-alvira-marriage/) and Opus Dei (https://opusdei.org/en-in/article/biography-4/)
• Cardinal Pizzaballa's "Within Your Gates" forum: Vatican News (https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2026-09/within-your-gates-jerusalem-pizzaballa-forum-vocation-peace.html) and University of Notre Dame (https://global.nd.edu/news-events/news/latin-patriarchate-of-jerusalem-to-launch-academic-forum-in-partnership-with-notre-dame/) and Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem (https://www.lpj.org/en/news/cardinal-pierbattista-pizzaballa-launches-within-your-gates)
• St. Nicholas of Tolentino: Franciscan Media (https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-nicholas-of-tolentino/)

Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up. In two weeks a bishop who preached to millions will be called Blessed. A couple who loved each other for fifty ordinary years is one step from being called saints. A cardinal in a divided city built an institution out of the command to love your enemies. Love builds up. Go build something today.