Category: Spirituality
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Called to Become God: The Human Vocation
“I should be doing more,” she said. “I want to do more but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what God wants me to do. What is God’s will for my life?” That’s how our conversation began. Her questions and statements are more than familiar to me. I have heard them or Read more
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Lift Me Up and I Shall Live Again
From Blessed Paul Giustiniani as quoted by Dom Jean Leclerq in Alone with God (p. 113); ‘The Lord lifts up those who fall’ [Ps. 145:15]. I never tire of repeating this word, which is the foundation of all my hope. I have fallen, Lord, but You are my God and my king: According to your Read more
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Act As If God Did Not Exist
When someone comes to you and asks for help, then you must not say to him with a pious mouth, ‘Have trust and cast your care on God!’ What you must do is act as if God did not exist, as if in the whole world there were only one person who could help the Read more
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Claiming Our Share in His Divinity
The saying “Know yourself” means therefore that we should recognize and acknowledge in ourselves the God who made us in his own image, for if we do this, we in turn will be recognized and acknowledged by our Maker. So let us not be at enmity with ourselves, but change our way of life without Read more
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The Scandal We Long For – A Sermon on Matthew 1:18-25
What is the most shocking part of today’s gospel (Matthew 1:18-25, Advent 4A)? What’s the thing that makes you wonder whether it really happened the way Matthew describes? What’s the hardest part to believe? For most people, I suspect, the thing that raises questions, controversy, and debate is Mary’s virginity. Aren’t virginity and pregnancy mutually Read more
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What are you Giving for Christmas?
At Christmas we often think, and rightfully so, of God’s gift of Jesus to the world. We celebrate and rejoice that God has been born into this world as one of us. God is with us in a new way. God has given us himself in the baby Jesus. The early Church, while recognizing God’s Read more
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Advent Preparation – Let the Baby be Born
“Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way….” (Matthew 1:18-25) Matthew’s description of how Jesus’ birth happens does not mention anything that is on my to-do list. There is no busyness in his description. There are very few words spoken. Mary and Joseph are silent. They say nothing. An angel announces and declares as Read more
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Practicing Presence, Disconnect to Connect
“Where are you?” I looked at my wife and said, “I’m right here.” “No, you’re not,” she said. “You’re a million miles away.” She was right. I was there but I was not present. Most of us, I suspect, have been on both sides of that conversation. We have closed off another and been closed Read more
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Episcopal Monastics, the Order of St. Helena
“There has never been a renewal of church life in western Christianity without a renewal of prayer and Religious Communities, in some form or another, often different.” – Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, 7/5/13 In some ways the monastic has always stood as a counter-cultural symbol, a subversive immersed in what St. Benedict, in the Prologue to Read more
Interrupting the Silence 