It is better for you that I go away” These are some of Jesus’ parting words on the night before he died. How can it be better for us when someone we love deeply goes away? That would make sense only if the relationship is dysfunctional or abusive. But how can that be true in…
The main character in TS Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral is Thomas a Beckett, a bishop, who from every outward appearance is saint. He is scrupulously honest, generous to a fault, and a defender of the faith who dies as a martyr. Yet, at a certain point in his life, prior to his martyrdom,…
There is a poignant scene in the series The Chosen which, irrespective of our reaction to it, demands reflection. This is the scene: Just before curing Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever, Jesus has a private conversation with Peter’s wife. He begins by telling her that he knows how close they are to each other as…
CS Lewis, one of the great Christian apologists, didn’t become a Christian without resistance and struggle. He grew into adulthood nursing a certain scepticism and agnosticism. He wasn’t drawn naturally to faith or to Christ. But he was always radically honest in trying to listen to the deepest voices inside and at a certain point…
The thought of some of the greatest and most influential people in history seems at times riddled with inconsistencies. Jesus, Augustine, Socrates, Aristotle, among others, appear at times to be contradicting themselves. It’s not always easy to see how everything squares with everything else in their teachings. That’s why the great religions and philosophies of…
A Benedictine monk shared this story with me. During his early years in religious life, he had been resentful because he was required to ask permission from his abbott if he wanted anything: “I thought it was silly, me, a grown man, an adult, having to ask a superior if I wanted a new shirt.…
Where might we experience Jesus today in a world that is seemingly too crowded with its own concerns to allow a space for him? The renowned spirituality writer Tomas Halik, in a recent book entitled The Afternoon of Christianity, makes this suggestion. As the world makes less and less explicit space for Jesus, we need…
Normally none of us likes feeling sad, heavy, or depressed. Generally, we prefer sunshine to darkness, light-heartedness to melancholy. That’s why we tend to do everything we can to distract ourselves from melancholy, to keep heaviness and sadness at bay. Mostly, we run from feelings that sadden or frighten us. For the most part, we…
I was raised a Roman Catholic and essentially inhaled the religious ethos of Roman Catholicism. I went to the seminary, earned theological degrees, and taught theology at a graduate level for several years before I ever started making a distinction between ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’. For me, they were always one and the same thing, Jesus…
There is an incident in the Gospels where the disciples of Jesus were unable to cast out a particular demon. When they asked Jesus why, he replied that “some demons can only be cast out by prayer.” The demon he was referring in this instance had rendered a man deaf and mute. I want to…