There’s a difference between being in bloom and being fruitful. Take a flower for example. It begins as a wee bud, hardly noticeable, and eventually in full bloom grows into a beautiful flower. In full bloom it’s very noticeable. This is its optimal moment of beauty, of being admired, of glory. But this isn’t its…
Most Christian denominations do not believe in purgatory. This is specifically a Roman Catholic belief. And in the popular Catholic mind, purgatory is too often mistakenly conceived of as a place distinct from heaven, a place where you are purified and made ready for heaven. But purgatory is not a place distinct from heaven and…
When I was growing up, as part of our family prayer we used to pray for a happy death. In my young mind, I had a certain conception of what that might look like. A happy death would be to die inside of grace, warmly cradled in the loving arms of family and church, fully…
“God has no favourites, except that every one of us is God’s particular favourite,” John Muir once asked, “Why are Christians so reluctant to let animals into their stingy heaven?” The same might be said of us as Churches: why are we so reluctant sometimes to welcome others into God’s mercy and to our communion…
Darkness is only bad because there is light. Sin can only happen if first there is love. Karl Rahner makes a very insightful comment about the text in the Gospels where Jesus is being crucified and says of his executioners: “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do!” Rahner suggests that they knew…
A priest I know shares this story. Recently, on their priests’ retreat, the retreat director began his opening presentation with these words: we take for granted that most people are going to hell. Then he tried to ground this assertion by quoting Jesus: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad…
I generally try to be sensitive to using politically correct language, though sometimes that can be exasperating because of various hyper-sensitivities where people are too easily offended. Simply put, someone can take offense at almost any word. However, despite our occasional exasperation with those who are too easily offended, we must admit that in the…
Fifty-six years ago my father died, late on a December night. As clearly as I remember his death, I remember the bitter cold. Within a day the temperature dipped to minus forty degrees Fahrenheit. I was still young; too young (I thought, at the time) to lose a father. Later, I’d realise I was wrong.…
Who are we really? Who are we when we are stripped naked in soul: stripped of ego, stripped of the image we have of ourselves, stripped of the hype, fads, and ideologies that we unconsciously inhale and which colour our thinking, stripped of the trauma we carry from our wounds, and stripped of our habitual…
We need to invite and challenge each other to what’s best and higher inside us, writes Fr Ron Rolheiser I grew up in a rural area where most everyone was either a first or second-generation immigrant. And most of us were just above the poverty line, struggling economically and struggling to speak English properly. And…