What we are, what we have, even our salvation, all is gift, all is grace, not to be achieved but to be received as a gift freely given. God's bias in favor of sinners is so immense that it is said we will be surprised at those we find in heaven whom we had not...
A hymn can be defined as a poetic statement of a personal religious encounter or insight, universal in its truth, and suitable for corporate expression when sung in stanzas to a hymn tune. Perhaps few forms of poetry are so widely known and used, and so generally...
The image on the slide screen was cavernous and beckoning. As the gathering in the San Pedro chapel took in the translucent greens and blues of the watercolor, we heard its artist, Sister Doris Klein, C.S.A., offer these words: “In the cave of our hearts…in the fabric...
The principle of neighborly love encapsulates the balance between time and eternity which is vital to the practice of true hope. Since love is not, for an ideal human being, living in a state of abstract perfection but rather for someone in particular, someone...
Great truths of physical energy plus imaginative vision plus human consolation are experienced through great music. Here is the highest function of music-making. In the words of…Abraham Joshua Heschel: “Listening to great music is a shattering experience, throwing the...
As many philosophers and theologians have observed, music is close to “spirit”—a non-material medium of receiving and conveying a sense of the world. In our deepest attentiveness and encounters with certain forms of music, we are opened to a depth of awareness; a...
In worship there is divine action. In our celebration of Christ, something happens. There is an action from above: the Holy Spirit delivers Christ and the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection to the worshipers. In other words, in worship our relationship with...
In worship we are ascribing greatness, goodness, and glory to God. It is typical that we put every possible aspect of our being into it, all of our sensuous, conceptual, active, and creative capacities. We embellish, elaborate, and magnify. Poetry and song, color and...
Worship in truth is worship that arises out of an actual encounter with God, a response to the experience of knowing God’s real presence and activity in our daily lives. This has nothing to do with sentiment, thinking religious thoughts or having aesthetic experiences...
We are called to experience the Resurrection in our own lives by entering into this dynamic movement, by following Christ who lives in us. This life, this dynamism, is expressed by the power of love and of encounter: Christ lives in us if we love one another…