When I was a young boy growing up in a Catholic community, the catechesis of the time tried to inspire the hearts of the young with stories of martyrs, saints, and other people who lived out high ideals in terms of virtue and faith. I remember one story in particular which inspired me, the story…
As a member of a religious order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, I chose to make four religious vows: poverty, chastity, obedience, and perseverance. I did this freely, with no other compulsion than a strong inner sense that this was being asked of me. That freedom to make vows with no outside pressures, is…
Daniel Berrigan once said: “Before you get serious about Jesus, think carefully about how good you are going to look on wood!” That’s a needed caution because Jesus warned us that if we follow him, pain will flow into our lives and we will join him on the cross. What exactly does that mean? Is…
The opening pages of the Bible offer us a series of stories set at the beginning of history which are meant to explain why the world today is as it is. The Adam and Eve story about original sin is one of those stories. There are others. These stories, because they use imagery that might…
Some years ago, a friend was facing the birth of her first child. While happy that she was soon to be a mother, she confessed openly her fears about the actual birth-process, the pain, the dangers, the unknown. But she consoled herself with the thought that hundreds of millions of women have experienced giving birth…
At the Last Supper when Jesus instituted the Eucharist, He chose to use two elements, bread and wine. The images are now so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that we never stop to ask, why bread and wine? Among all the things Jesus might have chosen, why these two? What do they carry in themselves…
There comes a time in life when it’s time to stop writing your resume and begin to write your obituary.” I’m not sure who first coined that line, but there’s wisdom in it. What’s the difference between a resume and an obituary? Well, the former details your achievements, the latter expresses how you want to…
From Pierre Teilhard de Chardin we get these words: “Because, my God, though I lack the soul-zeal and the sublime integrity of your saints, I yet have received from you an overwhelming sympathy for all that stirs within the dark mass of matter; because I know myself to be irremediably less a child of Heaven…
As a Lutheran priest, Dietrich Bonhoeffer would frequently offer this advice to a couple when he presided at their wedding, “Today you are in love and believe your love will sustain your marriage, but it can’t. Let your marriage sustain your love.” Wise words, but what exactly do they mean? Why can’t love sustain a…
On borders everywhere in the world today we find refugees, millions of them. They’re easily demonised, seen as a nuisance, a threat, as invaders, as criminals fleeing justice in their homelands. But mostly they are decent, honest people fleeing poverty, hunger, victimisation, and violence. And these reasons for fleeing their homelands strongly suggest that most of…