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Weeping in a Valley of Tears
My mother and father had a strong faith. They prayed every day and had us, as a family, pray with them. One of the prayers they said daily was the
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Being Present to God and Life
Shortly after his conversion, St. Augustine penned these immortal words: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me,
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Risking God’s Mercy
Shortly after ordination, doing replacement work in a parish, I found myself in a rectory with a saintly old priest. He was over eighty, nearly blind, but widely sought out
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Religious Literacy
In a recent book, New Catholics for a New Century, Arthur Jones, an American analyst, makes an interesting comment. He says that when liberals and conservatives argue today in the
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The Olympic Games
The Olympics have just ended. I wasn’t able to watch much of them, but did see the highlights most nights. What a curious, paradoxical mixture of things these games are.
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The Notion of Suicide Revisited
A couple of months ago, I wrote a column suggesting that we still have too many misconceptions about suicide. Among other things, I stated that many, perhaps most, people who
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On Not Overreacting to Criticism
In much of North America and Western Europe, we live in an intellectual climate that is somewhat anti-church and anti-clerical. In intellectual circles it is fashionable today to bash both
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Christ’s Face in Today’s Priesthood
The incarnation should never be confused with Disneyland. In the incarnation God enters into actual humanity – pain, mess, ambiguity, misunderstanding, crucifixion. There’s some purity there, on God’s side; but,
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Re-Imaging Jesus
My teenage years were a time of considerable loneliness. I remember myself only too well as a teen, driven by restlessness, haunted by unspoken dreams, full of youthful grandiosity, unsure
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The Tyranny of Program
During my graduate studies in Louvain, I had the good fortune of having Cristianne Brusselmanns as a professor. Many will recognize that name and recognize as well the pivotal role