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An Honest Anger
Today, for the main part, most of us live in chronic depression. This is not clinical depression so it’s not as if we need professional help or therapy, it’s just
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Eucharist as God’s Touch
Andre Dubus, in a beautiful essay on the Eucharist, makes the following comment: “My belief in the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy;
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Longing for Innocence
We are all haunted by two great desires, beyond the desire for intimacy. We long for innocence and long for sincerity. But they, like intimacy, are highly elusive. It is
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Hungry for Blessing
Several years ago, I preached a homily on the baptism of Christ within which I remarked that the words that God speaks over Jesus at his baptism: “This is my
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God Locked Them In!
In story of Noah and the ark there is a most curious line. God asks Noah to build an ark and then to put into it a pair, a male
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Ice Cream Vs. Beans
An elderly man was once asked what he would do differently if he had his life to live over again. His reply is worth meditating: “If I had my life
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Memories Dispel Depression
One of the newspapers that I write for, the Catholic Sentinel, in Portland, Ore., occasionally carries a column by a young teacher and freelance writer from Pompton Plains, N.Y., Christopher
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The Prodigal Son’s Brother
Recently, while giving a series of lectures, I was confronted by a rather angry man who accused me of being soft on hell, God’s judgment and God’s justice. Though angry,
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Religion’s True Birthright
Recently I was part of a panel which was interviewing people who were hoping to enter full-time ministry in the church. One of the questions we asked everyone we interviewed
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Ordinary Ground is Holy
Some years ago, a confrere of mine wrote a simple unpretentious poem which he dedicated to his 10-year-old niece after she had given him a tour of the rather humble