Inside the rite for Christian Baptism there’s a little ritual that is at once both touching and unrealistic. At one point in the baptismal rite the child is clothed in a white garment symbolising innocence and purity. The priest or minister officiating says these words: “Receive this baptismal garment and bring it unstained to the…
There’s a saying attributed to Attila the Hun, a fifth Century ruler infamous for his cruelty, which reads this way: For me to be happy, it’s not just important that I succeed; it’s also important that everyone else fails. I suspect that Atilla the Hun was not the author of that, but, no matter, there’s…
In the musical Les Miserables, there’s a particularly haunting song, sung by a dying woman (Fontine) who has been crushed by virtually every unfairness that life can deal a person. Abandoned by her husband, sexually harassed by her employer, caught in abject poverty, physically ill and dying, even as her main anxiety is about what…
After Jesus rose from the dead, his first appearances were to women. Why? One obvious reason might be that it was women who followed him to his death on Good Friday, while the men largely abandoned him. As well, it was women, not men, who set off for his tomb on Easter morning, hoping to…
The Earth was dark twice. Once at the original creation before God first created light. But later there was an even deeper darkness, on Good Friday, between the sixth and ninth hour, when we were crucifying God, and as Jesus dying on the cross cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”.…
“We only live, only suspire, consumed by either fire or fire.” T.S. Eliot wrote those words and, with them, suggests that our choice in this life is not between calm and storm, but between two kinds of storms. He is right, of course, but sometimes it is good to vary the metaphor: We live in…
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” These words of Jesus apply not just to those who are ordained to ministry and administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but to everyone inside the body of Christ. All of us have the power…
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently wrote an article about a lifelong friend who died by suicide. In describing his friend and his descent into a suicidal illness, Brooks sheds some needed light on how we still have a long ways to go in our understanding of suicide. (New York Times, February 9, 2023)…
The night before he died, Jesus struggled mightily to accept his Father’s will. The Gospels describe him in the Garden of Gethsemane, prostrate on the ground, “sweating blood”, and begging his Father to save him from the brutal death that awaited him. Then, after he finally surrenders his will to his Father, an angel comes…
Several weeks ago my older brother George died. His death was somewhat of a shock since he had been in relatively good health until a week before he died. His story is worth telling. No community, Mircea Eliade once said, should botch its deaths. Although highly intelligent and motivated, George never got the chance for…