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Compassion and Truth
Back when I was still teaching full-time, I was, for a period of time, the Acting Dean at a Theological College. In that role, I received one day a phone
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Beyond Labels
Several years ago, while giving a workshop in England, I was approached during a health-break by a couple of participants who asked me: “What are you? We’ve been trying to
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Facing Otherness and Differences
David Tracy, the eminent intellectual, submits that perhaps the biggest challenge confronting us today is that of facing our differences, of accepting, truly accepting, otherness. This challenge confronts us at
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Interruptions: Our Real Work
Henri Nouwen once commented that he used to be resentful whenever he was interrupted in his work until he realized that, often times, interruptions were his real work. There’s a
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On Not Letting the Sky Wilt
Words are really all we have to fend off the chaos. They can’t make or remake reality, but they can give us a vision with which to lift ourselves out
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Mary as a Model of Faith
“Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” Picture the scene: Jesus has just impressed a crowd and a woman, probably a mother, shouts out:
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The Mary of Piety
Devotional prayer to Mary, the mother of Jesus, has always been the center-piece within Catholic piety. Among other things, those devotions have focused upon various Marian shrines, places where Mary
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Faith and a Time of Agnosticism
Why does our generation struggle with faith? Martin Heidegger once gave this answer: “We are too late for the gods and too early for Being.” What does he mean by
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Jesus’ Moral Loneliness
Therese of Lisieux was much photographed. Her sister, Celine, loved using a camera and took lots of photos of Therese. Many of these survive. And there’s an interesting element in
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Purgatory Revisited
“A common soldier dies without fear, Christ died afraid.” Iris Murdoch wrote those words. Among other things, theyunmask the simplistic notion that if one has faith and a clean conscience