I recommended a movie to a friend. It is not a particularly great movie, but it has a good story. A light comedy with an unusual love story within a very somber setting. Some parts are kind of different but expected considering the premise of the movie. What really makes the movie, in my opinion, […]
How many people still pursue this? Different men have different names, which they owe to their parents or to themselves, that is, to their own pursuits and achievements. But our great pursuit, the great name we wanted, was to be Christians, to be called Christians. — A sermon by St. Gregory Nazianzen, “Two bodies, but […]
If you do not answer the noise and urgency of your gifts they will turn on you. Or drag you down with their immense sadness at being abandoned. — Joy Harjo
Jesus warns us [that] charity is not genuine if it seeks human praise (Matthew 6:2-3). Our actions are ‘beautiful’ when they reflect the light of God, so it is therefore right that the merit and praise for this light go to him. — Blessed John Paul II
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 […]
It doesn’t seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle […]
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 […]
All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence. Yet I believe you, messengers. There, where the world is turned inside out, a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems. Short is your stay here: now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear, […]
When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your womb tonight. […]
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 […]
I heard this excerpt quoted from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus (who passed away earlier this month) on the radio. It is from his closing address to the annual convention of the National Right to Life Committee held last July. (Read the whole talk). The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. […]
O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless— of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light— […]
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 […]
From Br. Joseph — What is a person? Classical Christian theology and philosophy defines a person as one who has the ability to know, to love, and to choose (to will). This is the image of God in which we are made. (The angels, our spiritual kinsmen, are also persons made in the image of […]
Freedom is about choice, and there are two kinds of freedom. There is a freedom to choose to do whatever you want, and another kind of freedom to choose to live for others. One freedom leads in, the other out. One freedom is living with responsibility, the other with disregard except for self. One freedom […]
When I was younger, late high school and especially in college, I identified with Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” It was the motto for the Age of Rationalism. It is still often used in today’s postmodernism. After finding faith, or rather faith found me, I believe that Descartes had it backwards—I am, therefore I […]
What did God whisper to the bird to make him sing? What was said to the rose to make her unfold? And to the tree to stand tall and spread its canopy? What did the cricket hear to make him chirp all night? And what word stirs the wind to blow, Sometimes gentle, sometimes with […]
I’m on page 148 of Paul Tillich’s The Courage to Be. He has painstakingly described three types of anxiety that are part of being human (ontologically speaking). There is the anxiety of fate and death, of which the western ancients were most troubled. There is the anxiety of guilt and condemnation, of which the Medieval […]
“To sin, it is not necessary to break the rules,” the sage said. “just keep them to the letter.” It is more than possible to make rules for our existence, the measure of our souls. But when rule-keeping takes precedence over the very essence of spirituality—justice, compassion, and union with God—rules become the very thing […]
From James Finley’s Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, Finley quotes Thomas Merton: It is…a blindness to prayer that exposes us to the pitfalls of becoming ourselves like those, …for whom a tree has no reality until they think of cutting it down, for whom an animal has no value until it enters a slaughterhouse, men who […]
From James Finley’s Merton’s Palace of Nowhere: In prayer we are “useless.” We do not “do” anything, but rather open ourselves to be the person God calls us to be. The Moslems say, “God does nothing and therefore there is nothing God does not do.” God is beyond pragmatic functions. He is useless, yet by […]
Found this little poem in a book laying around in the sacristy of the chapel at camp. For every pain we must bear, for every burden, for every care, there’s a reason. for every grief that bows the head for every teardrop that is shed, there’s a reason. For every hurt, for every plight, for […]
“…What I like doing best is Nothing.” “How do you do Nothing,” asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time. “Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, ‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and you say, ‘Oh, Nothing,’ and then you go […]
Life is like a pearl: it needs a grain of sand at its center—death—as the irritant, the enemy, to stimulate the production of the mother-of-pearl of life around it. But death remains at its center. At the heart of life there is death. Death is our being. Man is mortal. — Peter Kreeft, Love is […]
I have been struggling with purpose lately, my purpose. What specifically is my purpose in life? What is my part in the big picture of God’s plan? I know and trust that God has a purpose for all things, including me (see Psalm 139). Either life has meaning or it does not; either everything has […]