Some years ago, an op-ed piece appeared in the New York Times by Frank Bruni, entitled The Wages of Celibacy. The column, while provocative, was fair. Mostly he asked a lot of hard, necessary questions. Looking at the various sexual scandals that have plagued the Roman Catholic priesthood in the past years, Bruni suggested that…
I teach Spirituality at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. Fifteen years ago, we began offering a PhD in Spirituality. In the fifteen years since we have had doctoral students from many different Christian denominations – Mainline Protestants, Evangelicals, Episcopalians/Anglicans, and Roman Catholics. During those fifteen years we have not had a…
In a section of her poem The Leaf and the Cloud, Mary Oliver describes her feelings as she stands by the gravesite of her father and mother. She reflects on how both their virtues and faults influenced her life. Then she ends the reflection with these words: I give them – one, two, three, four…
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference. Most of us are familiar with these words from Robert Frost which have been used countless times in graduation and commencement addresses and other inspirational talks as a challenge to not just follow…
One of the great tragedies in all literature is the biblical story of Saul. Saul makes Hamlet look like a Disney character. Hamlet, at least, had good reasons for the disaster that befell him. Saul, given the gifts with which he started, should have fared better, much better. His story begins with the announcement that…
The Sufi mystic Rumi once lamented: “I have lived too long where I can be reached!” That was twelve hundred years ago, long before cell phones, the internet, computers, and social media. Today, most of us live where we can be reached all the time. While this has some huge upsides, it also has a…
We live this life “mourning and weeping in a valley of tears.” This was part of a prayer my parents prayed every day of their adult lives, as did many others in their generation. In the light of contemporary sensitivities (and one-sided spiritualities), this might sound morbid. Are we to understand our lives as time…
Prayer is most needed just when it seems most useless. Michael J. Buckley, one of the major spiritual mentors in my life, wrote those words. What does he mean by them? In the face of so many problems we can get the feeling that praying about them is useless. For example, in the face of…
What has been given you to carry? Where do the needs and pains of others conscript your freedom? When is freedom mitigated by circumstance? What are the situations that you are born into or meet in life to which you must respond, perhaps even at the cost of your life? What may you not walk…
According to the renowned mystic, John of the Cross, we have three essential struggles in life: to get our lives together, to give our lives away, and to give our deaths away. What is asked of us in the first two struggles is more obvious. But what does it mean to give our deaths away?…