In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we come to understand that here, in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished.” Karl Rahner wrote those words and to not understand them is to risk letting restlessness become a cancer in our lives. What does it mean to be tormented by the insufficiency of everything…
Why don’t we preach hellfire anymore? That’s a question asked frequently by a lot of sincere religious people who worry that too many churches, priests, and ministers have gone soft on sin and are over-generous in speaking about God’s mercy. The belief here is that more people would come to Church and obey the commandments…
Several years ago, I went with another priest to visit a mutual friend. Our friend, a successful businessman, was living on the top floor of a very expensive apartment overlooking the river valley in the city of Edmonton. At one point during our visit, he took us out on his balcony to show us the…
Several years ago, at a time when the national news was much fixated on a high-profile case of sexual harassment, I asked three women colleagues: “what constitutes sexual harassment? What’s the line here that may not be crossed? What’s innocent behavior and what’s harassment?” They answered to this effect. It’s not so much a question…
One of the great religious stories in history is the biblical story of the Exodus, the story of a people being set free from slavery, passing miraculously through the Red Sea, and finding themselves standing in freedom, on a new shore. Most of us are familiar with this story. A nation of people, Israel, was…
Inside each of us, beyond what we can picture clearly, express in words, or even feel distinctly, we have a dark memory of having once been touched and caressed by hands far gentler than our own. That caress has left a permanent mark, an imprint of a love so tender and deep that its memory…
Some years ago, an op-ed piece appeared in the New York Times by Frank Bruni, entitled The Wages of Celibacy. The column, while provocative, was fair. Mostly he asked a lot of hard, necessary questions. Looking at the various sexual scandals that have plagued the Roman Catholic priesthood in the past years, Bruni suggested that…
I teach Spirituality at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. Fifteen years ago, we began offering a PhD in Spirituality. In the fifteen years since we have had doctoral students from many different Christian denominations – Mainline Protestants, Evangelicals, Episcopalians/Anglicans, and Roman Catholics. During those fifteen years we have not had a…
In a section of her poem The Leaf and the Cloud, Mary Oliver describes her feelings as she stands by the gravesite of her father and mother. She reflects on how both their virtues and faults influenced her life. Then she ends the reflection with these words: I give them – one, two, three, four…
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference. Most of us are familiar with these words from Robert Frost which have been used countless times in graduation and commencement addresses and other inspirational talks as a challenge to not just follow…