King David, You, Me and Idleness It isn’t as if King David opened his eyes that morning to ask, “What are the 3 most effective ways I can take this blessed God-Given-Life and invoke the worst conceivable miseries upon me and my beloved nation?” Or “How can I best take the sacred anointing I was […]
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Politics of the common good That phrase, “politics of the common good,” reads as naivete. In a recent post, I wrote that politics is the pathetic name we give to the art of governing. Our immersion in our “shock and awe news” entices us to judge, criticize, and offend Jesus by neglecting his command to
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God as mystery “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they
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Doubt Isn’t the Opposite of Faith Fear is. Father Eric Ritter’s comment, “Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; fear is,” remains in my mind days after I heard him preach the homily for Saint Matthew’s Tuesday 6 AM Mass. The Gospel passage for Tuesday was: As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him.Suddenly
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Making an oratory of the heart… The phrase “oratory of the heart” is not common parlance. I first encountered it in Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God,. and had to stop and think about the word oratory: Oratory is defined first as eloquence in public speaking and second as a place of prayer.
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The weapon of prayer We don’t think of prayer as a weapon. At least I don’t, especially when I mitigate its power by saying, “All I can do is pray.” Yet, I know this life is a battle, so I have written about spiritual warfare countless times. Why then don’t I use my primary weapon
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Words of Blessing: Peace and Shalom On the day whenthe weight deadenson your shouldersand you stumble,may the clay danceto balance you.And when your eyesfreeze behindthe grey windowand the ghost of lossgets in to you,may a flock of colours,indigo, red, green,and azure bluecome to awaken in youa meadow of delight. When the canvas fraysin the currach
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The God-Hero and our battles On shoulders men bore me there, then fixed me on hill; fiends enough fastened me. Then saw I mankind’s Lord come with great courage when he would mount on me. Then dared I not against the Lord’s word bend or break, when I saw earth’s fields shake. All fiends I could have felled, but I stood
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Why are we commanded to love? “Christ did not love humanity, He never said He loved humanity; He loved men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a gigantic centipede.”)[2] Why do we need Christ and his difficult command to love? Because we are fallen. (This stance was nicely summed
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Arsonist of the heart is the last line of a poem by theologian-poet John Shea about the road to Emmaus. Shea’s reflection on the liturgical Gospel reading for Wednesday compels more than a cursory read of the too-familiar Gospel passage about Jesus’ disciples who have decided to get out of town: the road to Emmaus.
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