If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this...
I am convinced that a community-called-beloved is possible. This is an admittedly fragile possibility, but it is not a utopian dream. I believe that people of good will harbor a persistent hope that our planet can be a place of belonging for all its inhabitants. To...
Friendship is the reasonable passion for truly human fellowship; it is a mutual affection cemented by loyalty. The more people begin to live with one another as friends, the more privileges and claims to domination become superfluous. The more people trust one...
The Lord bless you and keep you.The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May God give you grace never to sell yourself short.Grace to risk something big for something good.Grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but...
Christianity is about water: “Everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” It’s about baptism, for God’s sake. It’s about full immersion, about falling into something elemental and wet. Most of what we do in worldly life is geared toward our staying dry, looking...
Mary made her womb available for a holy conception and birth. She surrendered to the mysterious, divine working of God, knowing that the holy child within her would change the world. May we, too, open our minds, hearts, and bodies to the mysterious working of God , so...
Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about—quite apart from what I would like it to be about—or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest...
It is good to experience the quiet ministry of the living spirit of the living God. Again and again there are the little healings of silent breaches which sustain us in our contacts with the world and with one another. We are stunned by the little word, the unexpected...
It is within my power either to serve God or not to serve him. Serving him, I add to my own good and the good of the whole world. Not serving him I forfeit my own good and deprive the world of that good, which was in my power to create. ————-Gender-neutral version: It...
The most common greeting of the first Christmas was not ‘Merry Christmas.’ It was ‘Don’t be afraid!’ It took real courage and perseverance to be at the manger: Mary’s courage, Joseph’s commitment to Mary, the awestruck obedience of shepherds, and the politically...