Spiritual Reflection

  • Bad thoughts

    Nov 03, 2023

    Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the sixth commandment – Thou shalt not commit adultery – and the second half of our lives struggling with the fifth commandment – Thou shalt not kill! There’s a truth here worth examining.

  • A subtler kind of poverty

    Oct 27, 2023

    Cardinal Francis George was once asked what he thought of the radical pacifism of people like Dorothy Day and Daniel Berrigan, prophetic figures who believed in absolute nonviolence.

  • Surrendering to love

    Oct 06, 2023

    Perhaps all of Jesus’ invitations to us can be summarized in one word, surrender. We need to surrender to love.

  • A single line says it all

    Sep 29, 2023

    No single line, outside of scripture, has ever spoken to me as powerfully, as persistently, and as hauntingly, as that line from St. Augustine. In essence, it’s Augustine’s life story – and the story of each of our own lives as well.

  • Hypocrisy’s two faces

    Sep 22, 2023

    The irony in Cook’s reaction shouldn’t be missed — and it isn’t missed by anthropologists. When we kill someone in God’s name, it doesn’t matter whether we call it human sacrifice or capital punishment.

  • Divine permission for human fatigue

    Sep 15, 2023

    A woman or man at prayer is equally pleasing to God, enthusiastic or tired – perhaps even more when tired.

  • Giving up on fear

    Sep 08, 2023

    This is one of nature’s last gifts to us, and living in a way that others see this new freedom in us can also be one of the last great gifts we leave behind with those we love.

  • Unfinished relationships

    Sep 01, 2023

    At the moment of Jesus’ death, virtually all of his disciples had deserted. The timing here was also very bad. Good Friday was bad long before it was good.

  • What will heaven be like?

    Aug 25, 2023

    Thus, we have something to learn from the biblical prophets, the mystics – and from the seemingly irreverent imagination of Andrew Greeley.

  • Praying for both — the weak and the strong

    Jul 28, 2023

    When Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, he held up bread and wine as two elements within which to make himself especially present to us.