This may seem a frivolous or impious question, it’s anything but that. It’s an important question and a reverent one as well. Why? Because healthy humour and playful banter help bring joy, lightness of heart, and healthy perspective into our lives. Can we imagine all that wonderful lightness of heart having no connection to God?…
What do you do when a wound or a loss leaves you hopelessly disconsolate and there’s nothing you can do to amend the situation? As well, what do you do or say when you are trying to console someone who is paralysed by loss? For example, what do you say to someone who is keeping…
The Acts of the Apostles says that it was at Antioch that the followers of Jesus were first called “Christians”. I once heard a challenging homily where the priest asked: “If you were put on trial and accused of being a Christian, would they find enough evidence to convict you?” An interesting question, without a…
God is the object of all desire, no matter how earthy and unholy our desire might seem. Everything we desire is inside of God. Both Jesus and the Psalms tell us this. God is the object of all desire and only in God will our deepest longings be satisfied. We express this in our prayers,…
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.…