The Christian’s waiting and hoping is based on the conviction that God is actively involved in his creation and vigorously at work in redemption. Waiting does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident...
Plenty of people write to me in the hope of getting some spectacular work to do, and at the same time they fail to see the worthwhileness of the immediate duty God has given them.
It is too small a thing to redeem only a few. God wants us all. This good news deserves our full acceptance. Thomas Merton wrote, “A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found; for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough...
In most worship services, some form of music accompanies the passing of offering plates. Financial gifts are offered to God in a context of music. Unfortunately, a tendency exists to interpret the instrumental or choral offertory as background music or a nice cover-up...
Our sense of urgency is balanced by the requirement to wait—to wait on the timing of God, which we can neither predict nor force. And the poor of the world have much to teach us about waiting—waiting with hope, purpose, and active preparation for change; waiting...
Waiting itself becomes prayer as we give our waiting to God. In waiting we begin to get in touch with the rhythms of life—stillness and action, listening and decision. They are the rhythms of God. It is in the everyday and the commonplace that we learn patience,...
I said to my soul, be still and let the dark come upon you Which shall be the darkness of God… I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith...
True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as “the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” Buechner’s definition starts with the self and moves toward the needs of the world; it begins, wisely,...
How to achieve “unity of life”? You start by giving over space in your crowded schedule of work and family duties to prayer and the sacraments. But even people who pray daily can still fence off their praying and working lives in separate compartments. Unity of life...
Use the things of this world as nature needs them, but not with excessive attachment. For it would be very displeasing to God if you were to set your heart on something of less value than yourself. That would be nothing but a surrender of your dignity.