Recently, I heard a concert with music from the era of the swing bands. Having been a teenager in the ’40s, I thoroughly enjoyed the segment, singing along with the chorus: “Ain’t She Sweet,” “When You’re Smiling,” and then a World War II song, “The White Cliffs of Dover”: There’ll be bluebirds over The white…
Once again the Christmas proclamation resounds through our world. We can never fully grasp the awesome reality of this event. The Word of God has made his dwelling among us and is manifested in the person of Jesus. Jesus becomes the new dwelling place of God. The biblical scholar Mary Coloe, in her thesis God…
She who reconciles the ill-matched threads of her life, and weaves them gratefully into a single cloth Rilke, Love Songs to God Somewhere (was it in Africa or South America?), I watched an indigenous woman at the loom. She sat behind the weaving where the ill-matched threads made a confusion of colors. She worked the…
With the turn into autumn, the look of things outside changes. From the lush look of summer, the colors of shrubs and plants deepen and thin out. What has begun to happen in things we see every day also happens to the less visible. Yesterday, the resident hedgehog was noshing on the back lawn. Usually…
Among the women portrayed in the New Testament who speak (they are few but strong individuals), Martha stands out as a forthright friend of Jesus. Clearly, Martha and Jesus understood each other, since Martha’s words draw from Jesus the response of one who knows and loves the speaker and who also knows that she knows…
Pentecost past and present shows the recurring challenges and blessings faced by those committed to Jesus.
Recognizing God in a variety of appearances requires new ways of looking, as the Resurrection stories show us.
At Lent every year the familiar story draws the faithful into a period of resetting our spiritual compass for its true north. The death and resurrection of Jesus pervades prayers and practices for forty days of Lent. While the psalms and readings of the liturgical season call upon the faithful to become penitents, there is…
Wintertime with a longer view of the year ahead is enriched by the perspective of the beatitudes.
Memories of childhood visits to scenes of the Bethlehem stable are treasures. It seemed that Christmas was especially for children. We have St. Francis of Assisi to thank for bringing us the reality of the poor stable. And I have a pastor to thank for setting up a nearly life-sized stable in a school yard….