Latest Articles
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Looking Directly at Who
I sat in the chapel yesterday evening. Suddenly, the sun was streaming directl in my eyes. “I cannot look at youk” I thought-not at the sun nor at the Son. That’s better said that I “cannot look irectly at you” now—the time will come. Healwhile, I have to find Him in ththose around me who…
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Politics in the Spirit
This blog might seem a little political but that’s because any comments, in any nation, about what’s real in everyday life is, in fact, well, political. And we need to see how these opinions fit into our spiritual lives….. So…. To understand how putting tariffs n imports hurts the “everyday American consumer,” you have to…
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Everything Human
Everything human is approximate. That’s a principle we need to keep in mind and in prayer. So, when St. Paul says that this commandment summarizes all the rest: You shall love your neighbor as yourself, he doesn’t mean to love each other one in e exactly the same way (Rom. 10). No—we are to love…
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Laetare/Rejoice Sunday
Laetare Sunday, Rejoice Sunday—I suppose because we’re half-way through Lent, which used to call for “giving things up” and maybe fasting for daily Communion—and adults’ fasting on assigned days each week. So, “Rejoice Sunday” had a certain bite to it when I was a kid in the 1940s. What I really remember of this different…
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Done in God
What happens is that we have a notion, or a thought, or a hankering: career, marriage, monastery, priesthood. It floats around our days and our solitude. Sometimes it seems the only real thing. Other times, it seems an airy unreality. We get a part of it, another part, and then it’s not there. We…
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Why We Fast for Lent
While we’re fasting for Lent, I might be good to be clear that we are not trying to make ourselves holy. Rather, we do it for two reasons: First, we are getting the tiniest taste of “suffering” so that our sympathy with the Redeemer’s much greater sufferings will have a bit of the real. And…
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Ashes to Ashes, for a While
Ash Wednesday puts a cross on our foreheads. This morning, the whole Jesuit retirement community was at Mass, and a lot of our neighbors from the other side of the retirement home, too. We all got ashes on our foreheads. It was devout and moving. Its not a new practice. For centuries –in Britain around…
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To Pray Better
Every now and again, someone asks me how “to pray better.” I know the feeling, because dark spirits are always lurking to suggest that I’m not much of a pray-er myself. Well, we all need to remember a little metaphor that Master Ignatius created for Jeronimo Nadal. This Majorcan inherited a good fortune in his…
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LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULER
Tomorrow, March 4, is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Let the good times roll! That’s Mardi Gras in New Oleans, an adult way of playing, expensive and very ritualized, that begins on Twelfth Night with a parade and ball and continues until this morning, the “Fat Tuesday” before Ash Wednesday. It’s been going on for…
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Synodality’s Jesuit Roots
Synodality is the name this pope has given the process he hopes (and has made some rules about it) will shape the way pastors, bishops, and popes do their business. And it’s bound to get to the “ordinary Catholic.” If you wonder where he got this idea, it might be useful to recall that he…