In the past, it has seemed odd to me that we celebrate the birthday of Jesus’ mother. We don’t know the date, of course. So celebrating it seems to the more sensate types a bit over the top. A nice thought but do we need to make a whole liturgy of it?

A while back, it seemed good to remember that Jesus is always close to us and to reflect that our closeness to one another is the ripeness of obeying His commandment to love one another as He loves us....

We all live barely aware of the excellences in our selves and the splendors in our life world. We know these are there – even beautiful things, wonderful things – but we are busy, busy, and have little time to be aware of them.

Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins began a poem to the Lady Mary this way: “May is Mary’s month, and I / Muse at that and wonder why.” I read it in his own handwriting ...

We all remember that Genesis tells us we are created in the image of God. We’ve long thought that we are – as God is – intelligent, free, interrelated, generative, and creative. It occurred to Cardinal Carlo Martini that ...

Here’s a copyrighted saying:  Things never were as good as they used to be.

So forget the myths about America the beautiful. You can find real truth in them. For instance, this nation has set aside what was at one time more than half of all the reserved mountains, plains, and waters on the whole globe. That’s really good, even if we are now logging and oil-drilling on some of it.

And article on the rise of neopaganism in Iceland referred to “a familiar trope in the Western imagination of Christianity as the dull, staid, oppressive usurper of some ancient, organic, and somehow more meaningful precursor religion.”

Leave aside for a minute the huge faith-leap that there existed a “somehow more meaningful precursor religion.” Who knows what ancient beliefs drove people? Anyone who needs to base their life’s meaning on that myth has much more faith that I can muster.

About piety, I sometimes feel that I neither practice it nor know how to define it. And unhappily, we tend to brand those people “pious” who receive Communion only after ostentatiously genuflecting (slowing everyone) slowly bowing their heads (more slowing) and then sticking out their tongues for the Host. Enough already: keep your piety in your heart and your tongue in your mouth. 

As we come to consider and contemplate Jesus’ exodus, His Passover, we need to be aware of His courage. We learn a great deal about our own exodus when we are aware of all His courage means.

Courage is the ability to do what you need to do without being paralyzed by fear and without hesitating to wonder whether you can do it or not. Jesus was sweating with fear as the end approached, but He did not hesitate. He just prayed.

One of the most impressive events in the gospel happens at a party.