April 2023: The Healing Power of Poverty of Spirit
Obedience is the evangelical counsel that enables us to listen humbly to the revelations of reality and to participate joyfully in its unfolding. Chaste, respectful love for self and others is the counsel that heals the inner discord we may feel due to a sense of alienation from others and from God’s guidance of our life for
February 2023: Appreciating Our Deepest Worth in God’s Eyes
The power of appreciation wells up from the belief that we have been granted by God the option to seek and choose to be in the company of people, events, and things that offer us the benefits of joy and peace, of dynamism and delight. Among them we find positivity, not negativity; respect, not envy; empathy, not
January 2023: Giving to Others What We Ourselves Live
Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town attempts to find the value, above any price, of the smallest event in daily life. Emily, having just died, asks for and receives permission to return to a day in her life—her twelfth birthday. As she relives these hours and watches herself going through them, she experiences the anguish of seeing how
December 2022:A Meditation on the Christmas Refrain of St. John of the Cross
The Virgin, weighed with the Word of God, comes down the road: if only you’ll shelter her. How blessed we are to meditate upon this simple four-line refrain in which St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), one of the greatest spiritual masters and ascetical-mystical theologians of the sixteenth century, captures the true meaning of Christmas. Each word invites
November 2022: The Space of Grace
The concepts of “cyberspace” and “virtual reality” are as familiar for us now as “Morse code” and “radio waves” were in the past. We can “google” the geography of any place on the planet, launch rockets to outer space, plant our flag on the moon, and send exploratory missions to Mars. The photographs of our solar system
October 2022: Humility, Keystone of Spiritual Renewal
Both Holy Scripture and the writings of the classical Christian masters emphasize the fact that the virtue of humility is the keystone of spiritual renewal. Here, for example, are the prophetic words of the Apostle Paul, who says in Philippians 2:5-8: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,