This is what God says to us from The Cross… Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference? — The Doctor, Doctor Who, episode “Dark Water” (Season 8)
This is what God says to us from The Cross… Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference? — The Doctor, Doctor Who, episode “Dark Water” (Season 8)
But when I love you, what do I love? It is not physical beauty nor temporal glory nor the brightness of light dear to earthly eyes, nor the sweet melodies of all kinds of songs, nor the gentle odour of flowers and ointments and perfumes, nor manna or honey, nor limbs welcoming the embraces of […]
Shall I love God for causing me to be? I was mere utterance; shall these words love me? Yet when I caused His work to jar and stammer, And one free subject loosened all His grammar, I love Him that He did not in a rage Once and forever rule me off the page, But, […]
Time is the unfolding of truth that already is, the unveiling of beauty that is yet to be. — Author unknown, from Christian Prayer, closing prayer for 7th Sunday of Easter
Sometimes it is as though the praise of God filled with world; as if it went out to and enfolded all creation, as for instance in the Psalms of creation or in the response which those songs have found in the hearts of God-enraptured people sucYh as St. Francis of Assisi. … This is not […]
“Where is God when I sin?” I asked a spiritual director. “Suffering with you on the Cross,” he said. And I began to understand Christianity. — Fr. Charles Stanley, OFM Cap., source
Experience of life: its routines; the workaday world; home leisure, reassuring in their way, buttress our sense of life’s rational elements, its continuity upholding our need for a beginning, a middle, and an end, and awareness of place along the line, holding off conflicts that bear no resolution: the creep of illness and indifference; the […]
What then is it all about? In a brilliant sentence, Benedict carefully explained the broad sweep of our being to us: “God made the world so that there could be a space where he might communicate his love, and from which the response of love might come back to him.” This passage emphasizes the central […]
Why should we consider this power to be transcendent (that is—transcending the universe as a whole)? Because if the universe was nothing prior to its beginning, then the reality which causes it to exist must be completely beyond it (independent of it). This transcendent reality which causes the universe as a whole to exist is […]
The question “why is there something rather than nothing?” is not searching after a thing within the universe, but rather the being of the universe. It is wondering why (to use the technical term) contingent things exist, that is to say, things that do not contain within themselves the reason for their own being. You […]
A hymn also known as Adoro Te Devote: Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore, Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art. Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived: How says trusty […]
Do we dare say it, “it’s all for you”? The winters marked the Earth Its floor with frozen glass You slip into my arms And you quickly correct yourself Your freezing speech bubbles Seem to hold your words aloft I want the smoky clouds of laughter To swim about me forever more I will race […]
A potential paradox/friction/confusion/fertile ground for mediation. (Or, I’m just missing a piece of the puzzle.) Justice = rendering what is owed to another 1) Question: What is the “what” that is owed to another? I have an internal sense of what is owed to others. Some words or labels: respect, love, kindness, compassion, help, service. […]
Is “image and likeness” a redundant phrase, or does it mark a distinction? Arguably the latter. To be created in God’s image is to be granted the potentiality for sharing in the divine life, a potentiality that may or may not be actualized and is shared in equally by all human beings without their consent. […]
In further reflection on the song “Laughing With” (see lyrics and this post), the word transcendence has popped into my head. Paradox points to transcendence, to something more. To transcend means to rise above, to see more. It does not deny what is, it just gives a wider vision of what is, depth, a larger […]
The song “Laughing With” is haunting me in a good way. When I searched for the lyrics yesterday, one of the first sites that came up was one of those song meaning sites. I read through some of the comments. Some were debating if the song was really about God or if it was a […]
A song by Regina Spektor (listen): No one laughs at God in a hospital No one laughs at God in a war No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving or freezing or so very poor No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests No one’s […]
Has someone’s courage ever made you look at yourself and ask what you’re afraid of, what you know of love? Your pain has changed me Your dreams inspire Your face a memory Your hope a fire Your courage asks me what I’m afraid of And what I know of love And what I know of […]
To paraphrase a quote from Flannery O’Connor: Life has, for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for. What more can one add?!
Found this quote on the internet. It was in reference to technology but holds much spiritual insight. Virtual: Something that you think you have, but you don’t. Transparent: Something that you don’t know you have, but you do. — Tony Karp (via) Ego, pride, control—all virtual. God—transparent. Reminds me of a line from a science […]
There’s a time I can recall Four years old and three feet tall Trying to touch the stars and the cookie jar And both were out of reach And later on in my high school It seemed to me a little cruel How the right words to say always seemed to stay Just out of […]
Here is another poem from Saint Thomas Aquinas in honor of his feast day. This one expresses in poetic form some very deep theology on the nature of God and hints to mysticism not normally associated with the good doctor. Aquinas also shows his sense of humor in the self-deprecating jab at his weight. (Hint: […]
The following poem/prayer is by Fr. J. Michael Sparough, S.J. It originally appeared in the journal Presence, Vol. 1, Number 1, January, 1995. My spiritual director read it to me about two months ago from the book, A Retreat with Our Lady, Dominic and Ignatius. This poem/prayer hits the very center of everything for me. […]
There is a line from a William Stafford poem: “It’s for the best,” my mother said, “Nothing can ever be wrong for anyone truly good.” And then I look at the suffering Jesus endured, and the suffering of all people. If any one was definitely good, it would be Jesus. As for me, the only […]
I ventured out recently into the blogsphere and discovered this meme via Sarx (with some links in the chain A and the original). if the nature of god is omnipotent, benevolent, and anthropomorphic (that god is a person, who sees suffering as wrong, and can change all of it), why does god not act to […]