Art too has its martyrs and perhaps our greatest pain is that of inadequate self-expression. That’s an insight from Iris Murdoch and it holds true, I believe, for most everyone.  Inside of each of us there’s a great symphony, a great novel, a great dance, a great poem, a great painting, a great book of…

People are forever predicting the end of the world. In Christian circles this is generally connected with speculation around the promise Jesus made at his ascension, namely, that he would be coming back, and soon, to bring history to its culmination and establish God’s eternal kingdom. There have been speculations about the end of the…

A prophet makes a vow of love, not of alienation. Daniel Berrigan wrote those words and they need to be highlighted today when a lot of very sincere, committed, religious people self-define as cultural warriors, as prophets at war with secular culture.  This is the stance of many seminarians, clergy, bishops, and whole denominations of…

Atheism is a parasite that feeds on bad religion. That’s why, in the end, atheistic critics are our friends. They hold our feet to the fire. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx, for example, submit that all religious experience is ultimately psychological projection. For them, the God we believe in and who undergirds our…

When I was a graduate student in Belgium, I was privileged one day to sit in on a conference given by Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Brussels. He was commenting on the Eucharist and our lack of understanding of it full richness when he highlighted this contrast: If you stood outside of a Roman Catholic church…

There’s nothing simple about being a human being. We’re a mystery to ourselves and often our own worst enemies. Our inner complexity befuddles us and, not infrequently, stymies us. Nowhere is this truer than in our struggle with love and intimacy.  More than anything else, we hunger for intimacy, to be touched where we are…

In 2011, a book by a young writer, Bieke Vandekerckhove, won the award as The Spiritual Book of the Year in her native Belgium.  Entitled The Taste of Silence, the book chronicles her own struggles after being diagnosed at age 19 with ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative neurological condition that always results…

Thirty-four years ago when I launched this column, I would never have said this: restlessness is not something to be cultivated, no matter how romantic that might seem. Don’t get Jesus confused with Hamlet, peace with disquiet, depth with dissatisfaction or genuine happiness with the existential anxiety of the artist. Restlessness inside us doesn’t need…

Contemplative prayer, as it is classically defined and popularly practised, is subject today to considerable scepticism in a number of circles. For example, the method of prayer, commonly called Centring Prayer, popularised by persons like Thomas Keating, Basil Bennington, John Main, and Laurence Freeman, is viewed with suspicion by many people who identify it with…

I was blessed to grow up in a very sheltered and safe environment. My childhood was lived inside of a virtual cocoon.  In the remote, rural, first-generation, immigrant community I grew up in, we all knew each other, all went to the same church, all belonged to the same political party, all were white, all…