CHURCH NEEDS AN 'AWAKENING OF THE SOUL'Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr said that unless Christians rediscover the "bigger heart" and "bigger mind" of the mystical and contemplative tradition, the church will be unable to make positive change in the world -- or reform itself.
DOUBT AS A SIGN OF FAITHIf we don’t accept both the commonality and importance of doubt, we don’t allow for the possibility of mistakes or misjudgments.
ENERGIZING SOULSWilliam O'Malley, S.J. argues that if we want the next generation to be spiritually adult, then parents, teachers and pastors have to rediscover their own spirits.
GATHERING THE GRACES OF OUR SECULAR SAINTSAs we come to the end of this [year], it might be worth our while to take some time with those for whom we mourn — to listen to their music, read their work or their biographies, watch their films and try to gather up for ourselves some of the graces they gave us.
GOD IN THE DETAILSIt is in the nitty gritty details of it all that God is not less real, but more real. Gerard Manley Hopkins observed that the Son of God became locked into the ordinary world. He who was great focused on what was small.
HAPPY ARE THE SPIRITUALA recent study suggests that people who are spiritual — religious or not — are a major part of the glue that holds a community together.
HOW CAN I LIVE OUT MY FAITH AT WORK?You don’t need to have an openly religious job for your faith to be relevant. Any honest and upright work is holy, and an opportunity to grow closer to God.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER?If I love all the selves housed within me, including the flawed, human, insecure ones, then why would I need to hate you?
MERCY ISN'T A CHURCH THINGIT'S WHAT FAMILIES DO EVERY DAY - If God is love and love is mercy, which seem to be two keys ideas of the teaching of Pope Francis, then mercy is all around us.
NOT SETTLING FOR LESSHope has been called the forgotten virtue of our time. Although we live in an era of considerable technological and scientific achievements, it may also be an age of diminished hope.
NUNS AND NONES; UNLIKELY PARTNERS TACKLE THE BIG QUESTIONSGlobal Sisters Report starts a three-part series on "Nuns and Nones," a movement that is bringing together experienced Catholic sisters and nonreligious millennials who share a passion for social justice, community and contemplation.
PARISH COMMUNITY AND THE SPIRITUAL LIFEThe parish exists to help individuals carry out the mission that Jesus proclaimed; namely, to proclaim the kingdom of God and to become living examples of Christ in service to God and to one another.
SACRED INWARDNESSWhy ‘secularism’ has no meaning. Secular is a term used within Catholicism to distinguish the world from the church, but the influence of the biblical insistence that God made the world and that he loves it seems to be very strong among religious traditions now.
THE SAINTLINESS OF FRED ROGERSIf we had Protestant saints, Dietrich Bonhoeffer might be the first one, and Martin Luther King Jr. might be next. But after that could come Fred Rogers, the still, small voice of love and truth, crying out in the television wasteland.
WHERE THERE IS PAIN, THERE IS GODThe presence of suffering is the one thing that most challenges our faith. Human suffering will always be a mystery. But the presence of God will always reach deeper, further, and wider.
YOUR LIFE IS NOT ABOUT YOUOne reason we Christians have misunderstood many of Jesus’ teachings is that we have not seen Jesus’ way of education as that of a spiritual master.
GOD CALLS YOU TO BE PRIEST, PROPHET AND LEADERAs Catholics, our call is "to live as a member of the body of Jesus. We carry out that life by being priest, prophet and leader." That's a tall order. Bishop Thomas Gumbleton explains how we can do it.
THE SACRED TENSION OF SOLITUDEJust as each of us is made for togetherness, we all are made for solitude. This is a sacred tension of religious vocation. Let the silence teach you who are, and who you are meant to be.
SPIRITUALITY IN TIME OF DISRUPTIONPerspectives on how the current era of growing economic anxiety and increasing religious disaffiliation affects our traditional understandings of spiritual practice, and what may emerge to support, displace, or replace them.
EVERYONE IS INIt’s easy to create unity by being against something or someone — by assigning a scapegoat. It’s difficult to create unity by being prepared to be the person who the others are going to throw out.
THE BLACK HOLE PHOTOA reminder that the are are some holy things beyond our vision: the closest we’ll ever come to a photograph of God.
FINDING OUR LIFEMystical experience connects us and just keeps connecting at ever-wider levels, breadths, and depths, “until God can be all in all.”
TAKE YOUR PLACE AT THE TABLEAll of creation [is] invited to sit at the divine table, to participate in the divine dance of mutual friendship and love.
PRACTICAL PARTICIPATIONGod moves toward us so that we may move toward each other and thereby toward God. The way God comes to us is also our way to God and to each other: through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
IMPLANTED HOPEThe Indwelling Spirit is the ability of humanity to keep going, to keep recovering from its wounds, to keep hoping.
CROSS-CULTURAL DISCIPLESHIPIf God is always Mystery, then God is always in some way the unfamiliar, beyond what we’re used to, beyond our comfort zone, beyond what we can explain or understand.
SMALL GRACES The closest one can probably come to understanding prayer is knowing that you don’t - A Meditation on Urban Prayer
GLEAMS OF LIGHTAn hour-long discussion between Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert, including how grief, properly understood, leads us to empathy and to deeper love for others.
WE'RE NOT MYSTICSThe devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic,’ one who has experienced ‘something,’ or he will cease to be anything at all.
MARY UNDOER OF KNOTSMary Undoer of Knots has come to serve as a touchstone in my daily life, assisting me whenever new knots arise.
WHY FAITH MATTERSFaith by its nature concerns itself with humanity’s deep, abiding and meaningful questions. It is a search for, and embodiment of truth, meaning, a well-lived life and similar earnest endeavors.
LOVE ENDURES ALL THINGSSo begins the world’s most popular wedding reading, one we have heard so often it no longer grabs our attention. No longer profound or challenging, it just seems worn out.
THE FULLNESS OF TIMEEncountering Death as a Daughter. Cathleen Kaveny reflects on death, memory, and Augustine's fullness of time.
TEACHING & PREACHINGPreachers should emulate teachers at Mass, striving to be adaptable. To energize the faith, it's time to let more people — including women — preach.
THE EMPTY TOMB: OUR REASON FOR EXISTENCEWe are gradually moving farther away from each other, enlarging the "empty tomb" in size and depth. Absence is slowly defining human life in a world wrapped in universal grief.
A RETREAT FOR A TIME OF ISOLATIONThis retreat has been prepared by the staff of Jesuit Communications for the use of people who have to isolate themselves for 14 days during the coronavirus crisis.
WAITING FOR THE SPIRIT: AN ONLINE RETREATSpend the days between Ascension and Pentecost in prayer with the online retreat, Waiting for the Spirit - a nine-day online spiritual retreat series starting May 22, 2020, and conclude May 30, the Vigil of Pentecost.
THE ABUNDANCE OF GOD'S LOVEEvery Eucharist is a celebration of uncalculating, over the top, love. God’s love is unrationed. This is just how God does things, profusely. It permeates his creation.
ACTIVE & CONTEMPLATIVE ORDERSThere are paradoxes in the history of Christian spirituality and not the least of them is the apparent contradiction in the relation between the active and contemplative lives. (Original article by Thomas Merton, 1947)
WITH PARISHES CLOSED, FIND COMMUNION IN CREATIONWhere is God in this long stretch of not gathering for public worship as Catholics? What grace or growth might there be in this unchosen asceticism? The earth becomes our altar when Mass is suspended for the common good.
WORRY NOTAs cases of the novel coronavirus rise again across the United States, we’re reminded of our mortal fragility, but also of God’s promise of eternal life.
WISDOM IN TIMES OF CRISISJob’s story reveals that God cannot really be known through theology and law. God can only be related to and known in relationship, just like the Trinity itself.
PRAYER WITH OPEN HANDSToo often in our prayer, we do not trust God’s character but rather hope that God will negotiate, taking into account our best efforts and good intentions.
THE IMPORTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF DOING NOTHINGIn an age of constant distraction, of meaningless argument online fueled by hate and anger, of persistent pressures demanding every moment of every day be accounted for by some measure of productivity, the exhortation to "do nothing" is a welcome corrective.
CAN WE MAKE RETREATS BETTER?How modern Catholics are reinventing an ancient tradition. The term retreat implies an action that is also a location; we withdraw to some place away from our normal lives.
CREATING MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS ONLINEAs we continue to explore virtual possibilities, we will learn more best practices about how to use the gift of technology to help people create meaningful connections online.
DISCERNMENT CAN BE HARD—BUT GOD DELIGHTS IN YOUR CHOICEMaking a good choice does not mean that you will avoid all suffering or that you will be able to predict all outcomes. It means that you are using the gifts of intellect and will that God has given you and that in the very act of using them you are glorifying him.
THE AIR THAT WE BREATHE In spring we deepen our association with the element of air, and of wind, and its invitation to open ourselves to a God who flows in directions that we cannot predict.
GOD IS TRYING TO CATCH OUR ATTENTION We know that much of prayer is simply paying attention. A prayerful person learns how to tune in, more and more, to the details of daily life and notice where the Divine is showing up.
SEVEN WAYS TO USE THE IMAGINATION IN PRAYERImaginative prayer invites us to place ourselves in Gospel scenes to deepen our connection with Jesus. Using our imaginations also allows us to create a better world as God calls us to do.
EVENING OF PRAYER FOR OUR NATIONAn Online event, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2020 AT 6:30 PM EST – 7:30 PM EST: Hosted by Adrian Dominican Sisters. Please join us for this live streamed Taizé Prayer Service.
FORGIVENESS IS FOR LOSERSChristian forgiveness is a revolution. It does what revolutions always do: it overthrows the old, decaying order and replaces it with something new. Political revolutions bring change by way of violent struggle, but God’s revolutions bring soul-altering change by way of spiritual renewal.
WHY SHOULD ANYONE CARE ABOUT THOMAS MERTON TODAY?We should care about Thomas Merton today because in many ways he reveals something to us about who we are: modern women and men, religious and laity, striving to connect the faith of Christianity with the particularity of our lives.
FAITH COMES THROUGH HEARINGSome days, although we cannot pray—because we are too busy, or because we are in too much pain, or simply because the words will not come—a prayer utters itself.
THOMAS MERTON AT COMMONWEALThe Monk, Poet, and Social Critic’s Spiritual Writings. One of the most influential mystics of the 20th century, Merton was also a prolific Commonweal contributor. Here, they've compiled some of his most lasting spiritual writings.
THIS IS YOUR SOUL ON MYSTICISMSince Covid-19 stripped away many of the distractions with which we would normally fill our days and forced us to slow down, a renewed interest in contemplative practice has meant that more people have time to be open to mystical experiences.
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE PEACE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCISWhat will surprise many readers is that no serious scholar today, Franciscan or otherwise, would place the Peace Prayer among the authentic writings of Saint Francis. In recent decades it has become evident that the prayer originated during the early years of the 1900’s...
HOPE FOR 2021 AND THE LOVE OF GODWhat is your hope for 2021? Maybe it’s that life will go back to normal. Maybe your hope is to return to an “in-person” life. Or to not just survive, but thrive? Hope is the underlining feeling of expectation or desire...
THOMAS MERTON AND THE LANGUAGE OF LIFEWe all have a fundamental need to be seen and heard. A failure to be present can spiral downwards, feeding more failures, in the same way that fear can provoke more fear.
BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERSIt isn’t always comfortable embracing those who differ from us—and rarely is it convenient. Shedding our worldly selves for such a higher purpose doesn’t count unless it challenges us.
A LESSON IN PEACE FROM ST. FRANCISPeace is a work of justice; it does not come about by a display of superior strength or military might. In fact, it can be argued that those who live among social outcasts... most truly effect the cause of peace and justice by changing society at its very roots: its people.
BREATHE IN THE SPIRITOne of the great blessings of technology is the easy availability of a wide variety of daily prayers. Through email, smartphone apps, and websites, we can find new ways to access the great spiritual riches of our tradition.
PENCIL PREACHING: PRAYER LIFE Jesus did not want his disciples to have a formal or fearful regard for God as a judge who had to be approached based on merit but experienced as an attentive parent who automatically cares for his children.
THE PASSION PATTERNThere are many ways to express this passion pattern in our lives. Christians are called to be people of the Resurrection, people who are joyful, and aspire to be life enlargers, ready to spread their joy wherever life takes them.
THE WAY OF ST JAMES AWAITS For more than a thousand years, the Camino de Santiago been Europe’s most venerable pilgrimage route, carrying pilgrims to the cathedral that tradition maintains is the final earthly resting place of the Apostle St. James the Greater.
A STIRRING THAT WILL NOT BE DENIEDThe divine greening power calls us to embrace the mystery of growth and of transformation. It’s a process that’s exciting and mysterious and scary, all at once, especially for those of us who want to know.
WHAT WE’VE BEEN MISSING This year of physical separation from our loved ones has taught us in an unprecedented way what it means to hope for resurrection of the flesh.
AN EVOLVING FAITH INCLUDES DOUBTDoubt need not be the death of faith. It can be the birth of a new kind of faith, a faith beyond beliefs, a faith that expresses itself in love, one can save your life and save the world.
PRAYING THROUGH PAINWhen you pray to God, mental and physical changes occur that help you with physical discomfort. A physician shows us how to pray through our pain.
PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM AND HIDDEN ACTS OF FAITHThe kingdom of God, by its very nature, is something that can only be passed on through “indirect communication.” That is, through hidden, elusive, subversive means of communication, sneaking in through the cracks of our self-reliance.
MOMENTS OF DOUBTCounseling the doubtful is a spiritual work of mercy... is a concrete act and the first work of charity, interpreted as the ability to understand the difficulties of another person; it also gives meaning and direction to the other works of mercy.
IN SEARCH OF PERFECT JOYWhen we learn to love with something like the love God has for creation, we arrive at the end for which we are made. We grow into our Godlikeness. We live fully and richly.
CONTEMPLATION IN ACTIONContemplation in action is about learning how to be, learning how to see, and learning how to love.
THE SYMPHONY OF YOUR DAYWe are invited to be still and listen for the sounds we’ve been too busy or too distracted to hear through the day. In the pauses between the movements of the symphony of our lives, we are invited to listen to God’s voice hidden behind the fanfare.
BREATHING AS PRAYERBreathing, then, within the context of spiritual resilience, is not only “the necessary” that St. Francis talks about, but it also helps us find what’s necessary—to do, think, feel, and become.
THE HARD WORK OF TRANSFORMATIONTransformation is always a process of letting go, living in the confusing, shadowy space for a while, and eventually being spit up on a new and unexpected shore.
BECOMING RADICALLY OPENWe do not know where we’re going, how to get there, what it will look like, or how long it will take. And that might seem daunting to us at first.
LEONARD COHEN’S BIBLICAL VISIONIf Leonard Cohen failed to live at the center of righteousness, he maintained a sense of where that center remained, and of how to find it again in prayer.
OUT OF CONTROL BUT VITAL TO GODWe humans are straddling a precipitous moment of cosmic history. If we continue to ignore the signs of decline all around us, beginning with climate change, we will become an extinct species.
THE GIFT OF VULNERABILITYJesus’ call to be servants is an invitation to embrace our vulnerability by serving one another. This is what brings a real sense of satisfaction in life. It transforms our anxiety over being vulnerable into joy.
GROWING MY TRUST IN GOD Actively looking for God during my day keeps my focus away from self and keeps God at the center. Keeping God at the center of my life gives me hope.
BREATH PRAYER HELPS YOU MEDITATE IN THE MOMENTTo pray without ceasing means to pray while doing the dishes or the laundry, to pray while waiting for the bus or sitting in traffic, to pray in the middle of the night when we awaken filled with anxiety.
MARK, A GOSPEL FOR ORDINARY TIMEOf the four Gospel writers, Mark is the one you would not want to invite to dinner. But he is the one who will challenge you to listen more carefully and to think more deeply about Jesus.
EARTH: ONE OF GOD'S FAILED EXPERIMENTS?Why would God create such a huge universe with so many possible sources of life if he did not want thousands of species to bloom? Do we think that God has so little imagination that we are the only possibility he could come up with?
FALLING IN LOVE WITH GODTo be in relationship with God means traveling on the two-way street of shared experience, opening ourselves up to God in a way that allows God into our lives.
HENRI NOUWEN: HOW TO (ACTUALLY) PRAY WITHOUT CEASINGTo pray does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God.
THE CREATIVE SPIRITUALITY OF THOMAS MERTONThomas Merton was a man of contradictions. He was a deeply human man — down-to-earth, direct, and spontaneous. Those who knew him best recall the infectious humor, the belly laughter. But he could also be a restless spirit, questioning, provoking, pushing at the boundaries.
7 EASY TIPS FOR PERSONAL PRAYERWe struggle to know how to pray or how to sustain ourselves in prayer. Whether you’re a beginner or more advanced in prayer, these seven tips will encourage you in your practice of prayer.
PRAYER AND SERVICE Prayer is an adventure that takes us through ever changing landscapes traveling through cactus patches, tranquil meadows, dry deserts, lone prairies, rolling hills... Each terrain has its own majesty and mystery.
SAYING ‘YES’ TO GODGod speaks through all creation. — Everything is gift. Grateful living is a celebration of the universal give-and-take of life, a limitless “yes” to belonging. Our challenge is to learn how to listen.
A FAITH PRAYEDWhen we allow prayer to hold us steady in faith, we experience the ups and downs of daily life with significantly greater peace.
THE MAGNIFICAT: CANTICLE OF MARY The greatness of Mary’s Canticle is that it embraces the whole sweep of the Incarnate Word—and the whole sweep of Mary’s trust in God.
EMBRACING OUR OWN MORTALITYLiving a deep, intentional, fully present, values-aligned life is also one of the most pleasurable and satisfying things you can do in the face of your mortality.
GOD IS GREATER FROM A CHILD’S POINT OF VIEWChildlike wonder is fragile and fleeting. If we become the right kind of small, we can recover a truly epic sense of wonder for the giant one who looms over us but is so often obscured from view.
HUMANIZING GODWe understand how our own hands are so important in expressing our love and care for one another—a touch, a protective hold. That image also tells us about God.
A CLOSER LOOK AT HEAVENEternity will be the revelation not only of all God’s love and goodness, but also of all that we have meant to each other.
AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD Many of us grew up praying to what we considered the God of the Old Testament: This God rained pestilence on a defiant Egyptian pharaoh and directed Moses to lead the Israelites through the desert to the promised land.
BROKEN OPENSr. Simone Campbell talks about how the courage to confront our own brokenness can bring about personal and political healing in this fractured moment.
ST. FRANCIS AND PRAYER Francis was as much subject to self-doubt as any of us. His motives were purified in prayer; his ego became right-sized there. His prayer was both private and public...
MEDITATION MADE EASYThey say prayer is talking to God. Meditation, on the other hand, is listening to God. Here are three simple steps for a richer, more meditative life.
CULTIVATING HAPPINESSThe urge that drives people to seek a spiritual teaching has always been the simple yearning to experience more happiness. Happiness is the true experience we are constantly pursuing and trying to grasp.
FALLING AWAY TO GODIf we’re going to live peacefully with each other and with our God-given Earth, many of us are going to have to let some things fall away.
SERVICE AND SELF CARE GO HAND IN HANDCaring for others requires caring for yourself first—it’s what Jesus would do. When your light is rekindled and your battery recharged, you may go forth and serve.
PATHWAYS TO GOD IN EVERYDAY LIFEHow can we more actively and securely follow Jesus’ guidance amid our daily tasks? People who had ordinary encounters with Jesus in the Gospels can aid our daily journey as disciples.
A GUIDE TO PRAYING WITH AN ICONFrom the archives: Icons are not just beautiful paintings. The purpose of icons is to help us pray. Jim Forest offers instructions for putting them to good use.
WHEN PRAYING IS DIFFICULTLet’s consider what we all run into from time to time in our journey from here to eternity. It’s the feeling that we no longer seem able to pray or that our prayers don’t really mean much.
FAMILY SPIRITUALITY BENEFITS EVERYONEFamilies don’t always include children. They could be a married couple, or a single mother and child, or an LGBTQ family. There are lots of different ways that people will define families for themselves, and we have to allow that.
SPRINGTIME WORKERSSowing seeds: Teaching is always an act of great faith, but if we keep an eye on the teaching authority of Jesus, a great harvest will be there for the gathering.
INSIGHTS FROM OUR ANCESTORSIt is impossible to measure the magnitude of the loss several generations of American youth have suffered from their contempt for the wisdom of the past.
THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE IS FOR EVERYONEIt at first seems like a little bit of a contradiction: Our current age calls for more action and engagement, not for a retreat from the world. When the world seems topsy-turvy, Benedictine contemplation offers stability.
CORRECT GODLY VISIONWhat men have believed about god has caused more wars and fiercer wars than any other thing whatever. Error about God cannot be a private affair. It can only end to a diminished and distorted life for everyone.
BUILDING A ‘CULTURE OF US’The challenge of our time is to shift from criticism to construction – from fighting old wars to creating new institutions of shared flourishing.
SPIRITUAL REALISM IN A DIVIDED AMERICAThe past few years have made evident a deeply discomfiting truth about contemporary American life: we may be a country, but we are struggling to be a people.
HOW TO PRAY WITH OUR EYES OPEN We need to take up the task of embracing the goodness of the palpable, analog world, whether it be to make time for a hike or to notice the sweetness of gentle rain or to revel in the bitterness of good coffee or to listen to the laughter of children.
THE WISDOM OF TREESResurrection and redemption will happen. Creation will not hurry. Yet, as life thrives and evolves, God will accomplish everything.
JULIAN THE THEOLOGIANWe ignored her for hundreds of years. Then we reduced her to a slogan. I don’t think she’d mind if we understand that only love matters. In the end, she is adamant: it is all love.
AWAKENING MY SOULPrayer and worship move us towards lives that are filled with God’s love and open to each other and the world. When our soul is awakened, we magnify the Lord, and this leads others to encounter God.
PERFECT LOVEWhen we try to love others in God’s Name, even if we feel little more than indifference toward them, our Heavenly Father is nonetheless very pleased.
LOVE, SEX AND DOROTHY DAYDorothy Day synthesized seemingly contradictory values with insight and nuance. Perhaps the most perplexing of her beliefs were those on sexuality and romantic love.
THE VIEW FROM THE TOPWhen Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, we lost the essence of the gospel as “good news for the poor”
WHAT DEATH HAS TAUGHT ME Each of our lives is a thread in a consecrated tapestry of divine love entwined with sorrow and hope—a tapestry that survives our bodily surrender and endures forever.
THE JOY OF CONVERSATIONGod reveals himself to his people through biblical stories, through words of friendship, and through conversations in which no one is left unheard
GIVING GLORY BACK TO GODThe weight of something suggests its importance or value—and ultimately its glory. However, one must always distinguish true glory from false glory.
MODERN MODELS OF HOLINESS All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love.
WE WANT GOD TO BE LIKE BATMANDeep in our hearts, we want God to beat up our enemies and punish evildoers. We want a God who gets mad and gets even. But that is not the God of Jesus.
A WALKING PRAYERHere you will find a sample walking meditation. It is divided into sections correlated with each of the senses and punctuated by prayer, using a psalm.
EVANGELICAL JOYFULNESS - RISE AND REJOICE!Happiness is fleeting; it’s ephemeral. It’s a feeling and emotion that at its core is certainly good, or at least neutral, like all human feelings—and like the full range of human emotions, happiness comes and goes. And that’s OK.
VISION AND VIEWPOINT: THE PROPHETIC TASK Unfortunately, the vision of Jesus the Prophet has become quite domesticated over the centuries. As life got more comfortable from generation to generation, prophecy became reduced to Christian rituals, to public “witness” of our own private spiritual lives.
PRAYER TRANSFORMS USWe rely not upon our own ability to pray as we ought. Rather, we have confidence that God will be true to the prophetic word and transform our lives by means of a new heart.
SACRAMENT OF FRIENDSHIPPart of the process of becoming ourselves, however, lies in having someone against whose wisdom we can test our own. It lies in learning to tell our truth.
LETTING GO OF CHURCHINESS Different emphases in Franciscan alternative orthodoxy: incarnation instead of redemption, cosmos instead of churchiness, and an emphasis on the union of humanity and divinity in Jesus instead of just his divinity.
FROM DUST TO PINNACLE OF CREATION All that we can learn from the natural sciences about human beings comes to fulfillment in Jesus Christ who opens everything we are to eternal life.
WISDOM FOR ANY SEASON “The risen Christ shows himself in the wounds of the world,” writes regular Commonweal contributor Luke Timothy Johnson in his review of Tomáš Halík’s recent collection of essays.
"I AM NOT AFRAID TO DIE" A simple, personal reflection on the spirituality of death and dying, within the themes of "Heaven," "Loved Ones," "Blessings" and "Signs."
WHAT’S IMPORTANT IN LIFE?When all the stages of life have passed us by, these things alone remain: the spiritual treasure that stretches our souls to see what our eyes cannot, the remembrance of how beautiful life really is under all its ugliness, and the love of those around us who make the journey gentle as we go.
Pope John XXIII: A Holy LifeGregarious and open, John exuded an enthusiasm for life that in itself set a positive tone for his pontificate and raised hopes for a season of change
LEVIATHANS, GIANTS, AND BEARS, OH MY! MONSTERS OF THE BIBLESanitizing biblical stories of violent monsters erases an entire facet of who God is, says this biblical scholar. For people who want to think seriously about the complexity of God in the Bible, this facet of the portrayal of God is something to ponder.
JESUS ACCORDING TO MARK It is interesting to note that of the Synoptics, only Mark’s starts with the word euaggelion, the Greek word for “good news” or “glad tidings.” The word has usually been translated in English as “Gospel” but that is not the best way to translate it
BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND METhe God of the Bible is rooted in events and encounters, relationships and reckonings. This incarnational aspect of our faith didn’t end with Jesus’ ascension; it went on and on, touching real people in real circumstances in real time.
THE ALTAR OF THE EARTH It was exactly a century ago, in the summer of 1923, that the Jesuit priest penned the essay “The Mass on the World” during a four-month expedition in northwest China, trekking on the back of a mule.
THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS A WILD THINGThe Spirit of God moves us to new heights of understanding, to new types of witness, to new dimensions of life needed in the here and now.
10 PROMPTS FOR SPIRITUAL CONVERSATIONSWhen was the last time you had a conversation with real depth and meaning, a conversation that left your worldview broader, your heart stronger, or your step lighter?
WHAT IS HAPPINESS? It’s not uncommon to measure happiness against something we can see or something we have or something we want. One thing for sure: the nature of happiness is one of the great universal riddles of all time.
TOWARDS THE METAHUMAN IN 2024While we anticipate crossing the threshold into 2024, we are anxious about what the New Year may hold for us. The world has become vastly complex, and we are struggling to make sense of it on a daily basis.
POPE FRANCIS ON DISCERNMENT OF SPIRITS Discernment means to think through our decisions and actions, not just by rational calculation but by listening for His Spirit, recognizing in prayer God’s motives, invitations, and will. There is a principle worth remembering in these times: ideas are debated, but reality is discerned.
ACCUMULATED FAITHFaith is a way of life that acquires its layers and contours incrementally, often imperceptibly. However gradually and unceremoniously faith may evolve within us, it provides a life that can hold and carry us through all kinds of circumstances.
THE PATRON SAINT OF IN-BETWEEN THINGS I wonder what our faith looks like when it is defined by not the certainty of boundaries but the expansiveness of the all-of-the-aboves that permeate our lives. What might it mean to embrace the messy mixtures?
DEATH ANXIETY AND THE CROSS Jesus changed the human boundaries, showing himself to be human and Godly at the same time. The power of Abraham’s God was now expressed in a human person.
THE WISDOM OF NOT KNOWING To say “I don’t know” as a prayer, confession, or meditation is not to give up but to witness to the gap of unknowing between us and God.
WE, THE ORDINARY PEOPLE OF THE STREETSWe, the ordinary people of the streets, believe with all our might that this street, that this world where God has placed us, is, for us, the site of our holiness.
ACTING ON THE BEATITUDES Jesus says that those who are truly blessed are those who suffer (poverty, mourning, and the like) not because he wants us to suffer; it’s because he wants us to realize that nothing in this world can ever fully satisfy. Only he can.
MAKING SENSE OUT OF SCRIPTUREReading through the lens of the four senses of Scripture can help us better understand the Gospel and deepen our faith.
THE PARACLETE IN OUR LIVES How the Holy Spirit makes God’s plan for each of us real. The Holy Spirit makes God’s plan for each of us real, and we know the Holy Spirit by what he does in each life.
THE HUMILITY OF GODFaith is more than a magical formula to conquer the worry, regret, shame and resentments that cloud our visions and make us jaded and tired.
SAINT JUNÍPERO SERRA’S CAMINOAt the heart of pilgrimage is a longing that has fascinated and compelled the human spirit from time immemorial. America now has its own pilgrim way: the road connecting the California missions of Saint Junípero Serra, canonized in 2015.
DAILY LIFE AS SPIRITUAL EXERCISEIn the Middle Ages people were well aware of the inexhaustible power that arises simply from sitting still. After that time, knowledge of the purifying power of stillness and its practice was, in the West, largely lost.
CLAIMING OUR DIVINE POTENTIAL [Prophets] were vehicles by which the God-world relationship took on new meaning and purpose precisely because they consciously realized and claimed divinity as the deepest part of themselves. They did not tell people revelations of God; rather, they awakened to the revelatory character of their own lives.
THE HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL VALUE OF PHONING HOME God, like an attuned parent, hears not just the words we say but also the hidden parts of our hearts. God listens to the deep recesses of our soul, whether we are speaking from a posture of sorrow and doubt or from a position of joy and gladness.
FIRST WITNESS TO THE LIGHTMary Magdalene’s experience with darkness and desolation helped her seek out the new dawn of the Resurrection.Mary Magdalene’s experience with darkness and desolation helped her seek out the new dawn of the Resurrection.
A PRAYER FOR LEADERSHIP Give us, O God, leaders whose hearts are large enough to match the breadth of our own souls and give us souls strong enough to follow leaders of vision and wisdom...
POPE’S TIMELY AUGUST INTENTION: POLITICIANS When a politician does not allow space for dialogue, cooperation and the commitment to the dignity of people – key aspects that the Pope emphasizes in Fratelli Tutti – the integral development of society is not achieved.
A TIME TO MATURE Jesus feeds the crowd of 5,000, and they want to make him their king who will provide food to satisfy their hungry stomachs. Yet, as they seek Jesus out, he challenges them to mature in how they relate to him and to the Father.
COSMIC CONVERGENCE: TEILHARD’S VISION AND THE 2024 OLYMPICSThe Paris Olympics have showcased not only athletic prowess but also the remarkable spirit of human support. In an era dominated by technology and anxieties about machine replacement, the sheer intensity and determination of these athletes serve as a powerful reminder of our unique human qualities.
THE MYSTICAL CAMINOThe prayer that Jesus taught us is a map of the spiritual journey. However, the map is neither the path nor the journey, so Jesus provides us a tripartite teaching to “make the Way by walking” via “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”
WHEN YOUR SUFFERING CAN’T BE SEENTelling a few coworkers or neighbors about our health might release some of our own bottled-up emotions and frustrations about looking good but feeling less than healthy.
JULIAN OF NORWICH: MOTHER FATHER GODhe concept and human experience of mother is so primal, so big, deep, universal, and wide that to apply it only to our own mothers is far too small a container. It can only be applied to God.
MOTHER FATHER GODYhe very word mother is so definitive and “beautiful” in most people’s experience that it evokes, at its best, what we mean by God. This is not what most of the world’s religions have taught or believed up to now.
LEAVING SLAVERY AND PHARAOH BEHINDThe miracle of Jesus’ resurrection, like the Exodus, happened once historically, but it is also outside of time and place and available to us as a way to leave behind the pharaohs that enslave us, so as to arrive in freedom, on a new shore.
YOU NEED TO ABANDON GOD TO FIND GODToo many people, when they grow older, give up on the God they learned about as children. What they really need to do is think about God in a more mature way.
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE AS A LONG DISTANCE RACEThe Christian life is about accepting God’s gift and letting it bear fruit in us. It is not about pulling the stem of the plant to make it grow, but letting the flowers sprout spontaneously.
THE WITNESS: REVELATION COMES FROM ELSEWHEREThe witness encounters the event that is revealing itself without, however, wholly understanding it; indeed, he has encountered it all the more indisputably when he does not understand it completely.
BEING RICH, BUT IN A HURRYJesus once said something that might be paraphrased this way: What does it profit you if you gain the whole world and are forever too much in a hurry and too pressured to enjoy it.
THE VINE, A POWERFUL SYMBOL As autumn arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, vineyards across all wine-producing regions are abuzz with the harvest and viticultural work. A reflection on the significance of the vine in both the Bible and Christian art.
GOD’S SENSE OF HUMORHumor constitutes a precious element of a healthy and balanced life even from the spiritual point of view because it has a lot to do with gratuity, creativity and intelligence, all indispensable elements of the relationship with God.
A LITANY FOR THE 2024 ELECTION SEASONIn these days before our national election, we unite in prayer with the whole communion of saints for an election that is both peaceful and prudential.
CREATOR SPIRIT - THINKING OF GOD THROUGH A BROAD LENS The ambling character of life’s evolutionary emergence over billions of years … is hard to reconcile with a simplistic idea of God the Creator at work…. Best to let go of the idea of God as a monarch acting upon other beings.
OUR REAL LEGACY – THE ENERGY WE LEAVE BEHINDEach of us needs to courageously ask: what energy do I bring into a room? What energy do I bring to the family table? To a community gathering? To those with whom I discuss politics and religion?
THE RISK OF LIVING THE GOSPELIs there anything happening in America today that would make you think we believe we should “love our enemies”? If Christians do not decide to finally be like Jesus, then let’s just give up on this whole Christian thing.
REPLACING MORAL OUTRAGE WITH CURIOSITY AND WONDERIt would be wise in our age to return to the wisdom that arose from Vatican II around the notion of inculturation - the idea that diversity within differing cultures contributes to a “deeper humanity” and a “better plan for the universe.”
THE SACRED HEART OF THE NEW ENCYCLICALWith his new encyclical, Dilexit nos, Pope Francis calls us to recommit ourselves to Jesus’ Sacred Heart, so that the Lord’s love “can heal the hurt we have caused, strengthen our ability to love and serve others, and inspire us to journey towards a just, solidary, and fraternal world.”
RELEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEARTThere are certain words which, despite today’s overwhelmingly materialistic, scientifically reductionist and technological mindset, still carry an immense weight in everyday conversation. Foremost among them is the word “heart”.
BREAD AND WINEAt the Last Supper when Jesus instituted the Eucharist he chose to use two elements, bread and wine. The images are now so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that we never stop to ask, why bread and wine? Among all the things Jesus might have chosen, why these two?
WHAT IS CONTEMPLATION? (THE MOVEMENTS OF THE SOUL)While there are important similarities, the differences between Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism, on the one hand, and Christianity, on the other, ought not be understated. “To raise the mind to God is to take one’s first steps into the lands of likeness in the hope that one will increasingly become more like Christ”.
THE BUSINESS OF CHANGING THE WORLDThe spiritual life of the sower is plagued by discouragement and failure, yes, but tinged as well by wide-eyed hope and unflappable certainty.
BLESSED CARLO ACUTIS AND THE MANY MIRACLES OF THE EUCHARISTThe closer the saint is to our day, the more we might wipe out the weirdness of sanctity. Blessed, soon to be Saint, Carlo Acutis is especially prone to this kind of treatment. When his canonization was announced, newspapers declared: the first Millennial saint.
CARLO ACUTIS: A TRUE ORIGINALCarlo Acutis shows that people of any age that you can be flawed and faith-filled. He reminds me that even though we are one body, we are unique parts of a whole.
'ALL BROTHERS,' POPE FRANCIS' FINAL MESSAGE OF 2024For his last message of 2024, Pope Francis reflected on the ongoing work for the Jubilee that has begun. He celebrated the city of Rome, reinterpreting its "universal vocation" as a laboratory of fraternity.
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF JESUS’ BAPTISM? THE FEAST ENDING CHRISTMASWe Christians reflect upon and celebrate the baptism of Jesus in significant ways: liturgically, at the conclusion of the Christmas season; devotionally, as the First Luminous Mystery of the Rosary; and theologically, as the scriptural prism for the meaning of Christian baptism.
DISCERNING FAITH IN A POST-CHRISTIAN CULTUREHow can the logos of Christian faith remain faithful to its identity and at the same time be open to the cultural processes that are going on in our global and multi-faith setting?
COMING TO PEACE WITH OUR LACK OF RECOGNITIONWe crave few things as deeply as self-expression and recognition. We have an irrepressible need to express ourselves, be known, recognized, understood, and seen by others as unique, gifted, and significant.
DAILY TIME WITH GOD WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFEIt’s so easy to convince ourselves that we’re spiritually mature enough to make it days, even weeks, without extended, dedicated times of being in the Word and prayer.
MAKING SENSE OF PLACEThe only things we know about God’s house or tent is that it is wholly beautiful and desirable. It feels like home... Maybe all our beloved places are little aspects of heaven, each a tiny square of mirror on a disco ball that we can’t even imagine, all the good bits and none of the bad bits.
THIS JUBILEE YEAR, BE OPEN TO THE GIFT OF HOPEAre you a hopeful person? Is it possible to become one if hope’s not your signature attitude? This is the question of the year, since Pope Francis designated 2025 as the Jubilee for Pilgrims of Hope
LISTENING TO GOD IN TIMES OF TRANSITIONChange and transition are fundamental parts of Christian life. Listen to an interview with Daniel P. Horan on the "Off the Page" Podcast at Franciscan Media.
FINDING HOPE AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF YOUR LIFEHope is one of life’s most essential ingredients — a small but powerful light that keeps us moving forward, even in the hardest of times. And it's also the theme for this Jubilee Year!
FAITH IN THE STREETS - AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN SCORSESELast summer, director Martin Scorsese and Antonio Spadaro, SJ, an undersecretary for the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education, answered questions about their new book,
Dialoghi sulla Fede, which reflects on their nearly decade-long friendship and summarizes their ongoing exchanges about life, faith, and cinema.
A CRISIS OF IMAGINATION (FINDING SOMETHING DEEPER)The seat of our faith does not lie within our imaginations and we cannot sustain our faith by our imaginations. To forget this can leave us open to a dangerous confusion. But we remain there, held by something deeper, something beyond what we can explain or feel. This is where faith lives and this is what faith means.
A NEW WORLD - TO HEAL, WE MUST FEELThe journey to the timeless is not a solitary hero’s journey. We are not solitary actors brandishing swords. We are beings who have traveled a long way to listen or pray or meditate, daring to put our swords down and to be still.
ST. FRANCIS AND THE GIFT OF LOVEThe people we love most are flawed. We are flawed. Yet, when we are separated from them and later reunited, all that flies out the window. We see their worth, their true inner beauty, and feel the love, outweighing the wounds or imperfections as we come face-to-face again.
WHY OUR INCOMPLETENESS MEANS HOPEAcknowledging that we haven't yet reached our destination can be frustrating but should also be a source of hope in our lives. Our condition of being “on the way,” is a positive one, because it creates possibility. We are always capable of more.
SOME COUNSELS ON FAITH AND RELIGION FOR OUR PRESENT GENERATIONGod’s first concern is not whether you’re going to church or not, but whether you are staying honest in your search for truth and meaning. When Thomas doubts the reality of the resurrection, Jesus doesn’t scold him, but simply asks him to stretch out his hand and continuing searching.
WILL RELIGIOUS LIFE RISE AGAIN — AND SHOULD IT?The answer is actually a simple one but a potentially life-changing one at the same time. Several ancient stories long ago illuminated both the purpose and the spirituality of what it means to be a religious. Even now, even here.
HOW DO WE RECONCILE GOOD AND EVIL?From A Hunger and Wholeness Podcast: Iila Delio and Gabi Sloan interview Matt Segall on process theology. Supporting a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society’s toughest problems.
EDITORIAL: A TIME TO REBUILD St. Francis told us to “begin again,” but first we need to rebuild the ruins in and around us. Rebuilding ourselves, our relationships and our communities - from St. Anthony Messenger, January 2025.
A YEAR FOR HOPEWe have largely lost our understanding of the theological virtue of Christian hope, trading it in for an easier, almost Hallmark-like version of wishing — and perhaps wishing into existence — a near future of ease, niceness and comfort.
GIVE DRINK TO THE THIRSTYTaken as whole, every tenth line in the New Testament is a direct challenge to the Christian to reach out to the physically poor. In Luke’s gospel, it is every sixth line. In the Epistle of James, it is every fifth line. Involvement with the poor is not a negotiable item. This is mandated with the same weight as is any creed, dogma, and moral or spiritual teaching.
CRISIS AND HOPECan we radically re-think the meaning of the word “God?” We are such a deeply fearful people that reconstructing religion in the 21st century may be more threatening than a nuclear war.
THE DIFFICULT WORK OF LOVING OTHERSThere is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. When we look beneath the surface, beneath the impulsive evil deed, we see within our enemy-neighbor a measure of goodness and see them in a new light.
LESSONS THROUGH FAILUREWhat’s to be learned through failure, through being humbled by our own faults? Generally that’s the only way we grow In being humbled by our own inadequacies we learn those lessons in life that we are deaf to when we are strutting in confidence and pride.
A RESISTANCE POSITIONEither we learn how to be the salt of the earth, a true alternative to the normal motivations and actions of society, or as Jesus put it very clearly, we might as well throw it out and trample it underfoot.
LISTEN AND SURRENDER TO THE PRESENCE OF LOVEWe are always poised on thresholds; between what has been and what is yearning to be, between the known and the mystery that beckons. Rather than seeing these tensions as problems to be solved, we can recognize them as the creative friction that sparks new life.
WHAT DID JESUS WRITE IN THE SAND?An interpretation that imagines the meaning of Christ’s writing in the sand with the hope that it will further build up love of neighbor, especially love of the many women now, in the past, and alas in the future, who have been so badly treated by men.
YOUR PRAYER LIFE: LOOKING AT THE BIGGER PICTURE Any Christian with a daily prayer life surely has experienced desolation to varying degrees. It’s just a part of the experience of being a disciple of Christ. Although we may not always know the exact cause of our spiritual desolation, we can have confidence that “all things work for good for those who love God.”
WE NEED A THEOLOGY OF ABUNDANCEThe scarcity mindset is governed by fear and self-interest, but a theology of abundance more closely aligns with the life, ministry and preaching of Jesus Christ in the Gospels.
STRUGGLING TO GIVE BIRTH TO HOPEThe women in the Gospels who first met the resurrected Jesus were the first to be given a true reason for hope and were the first to act as midwifes of that new birth. So too must we. We need to become midwives of hope.
THE FADING OF FORGIVENESSForgiveness is singularly the most important of all virtues. As Jesus tells us when he gives us the Lord’s Prayer, if we cannot forgive others, God will not be able to forgive us.
LESSONS FOR OUR TIMEOne of the greatest challenges for religious believers is overcoming the timeless, eternal God of perfection and reconceiving God as a presence of unconditional love. Love is the indestructible energy of cosmic life. Once we grasp our true reality, hope looms before us.
OUR FIRST GLIMPSE OF LOVEThe feminine elements in God are an important balance to the masculine ones. If all we have known of the divine is God the Father, we are walking with a spiritual limp, yes, even those of us who were lucky enough to be raised to see “him” as loving and tender rather than aloof or stern.