Theodore Roethke begins his poem ‘In a Dark Time’, with these words: “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.” We live in a dark time, one beset with hatred, bitter divisions, and wars that, daily, are bringing death and incalculable trauma to millions of people. But are our eyes beginning to see? Sometimes…
Thomas Moore, the author of Care of the Soul, teaches that our most important spiritual task is to listen to the promptings of our own soul. If listened to in honesty, it will guide us, protect us, and keep us healthy. I heard him present this to an audience in a church setting and after…
In the musical Les Misérables, there’s a particularly haunting song, sung by a dying woman (Fantine) who has been crushed by virtually every unfairness 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 will…
I heard this story from a renowned theologian who prefers I don’t use his name in sharing this, though the story speaks well of his theology. He was giving a lecture and at one point stated that God didn’t want Jesus to suffer like he did. A woman in the audience immediately raised her voice:…
A vocation is an inner voice so strong that it becomes unthinkable to turn away, writes Fr Ron Rolheiser, any of us are familiar with a famous line from C.S. Lewis who, when writing about his conversion to Christianity, shared that he was “the most reluctant convert in the history of Christendom.” When he first…
Many of us could use more silence in our lives. I say this cautiously because the place of silence in our lives isn’t easy to specify. Silence is a complex; sometimes we fear it and try to avoid it and sometimes when we are tired and over-stimulated we positively long for it. Generally, though, we…
The renowned anthropologist Mircea Eliade once issued this warning: “No community should botch its deaths.” He’s right. Death washes clean and only after someone is gone can we fully drink in the gift that he or she was for us and the world. On January 22 the Christian community, and the Catholic Church in particular,…
I once lived in community for several years with an Oblate brother who was wonderfully generous and pious to a fault. But he struggled to pick up symbol and metaphor. He took things literally. For him, what the words said is what they meant! This caused him considerable confusion and consternation when each day praying…
Recently I was listening to a religious talk show on the radio when a caller asked: How do we know that God exists? A good question. The radio host answered by saying that we know it through faith. That’s not a bad answer, except what needs to be teased out is how we know this…
Jesus was once asked why he spoke in parables. His answer is more than a little curious: I speak in parables . . . lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn again, and I should heal them. At first glance, it would seem…