Yesterday’s readings, two days after Pentecost, feature Jesus giving his disciples a mission. He tells them “You are the salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world.” They are tasked with bringing some seasoning and illumination to all the nations. They are, as Elwood Blues would say, on a mission from… Read More Led by the Spirit into the Unknown
I am sitting on my bed, lacing up my shoes, and assuring myself that if the nuns reject me based on my footwear, I don’t want anything to do with them anyway. I have sifted through my closet and have decided to wear dark jeans and a black sweater with a white collar sewn into… Read More Mercy in the City: Making Mercy a Verb
In September 2003, Pope John Paul II traveled to Slovakia with an agenda to call the Slovakians to bring their Christian heritage into the European Union. Midway through his opening remarks, John Paul slumped down, breathless and unable to finish his speech. Suddenly, a seemingly quiet trip became a storm of media frenzy. This Pope,… Read More Pedagogy of Suffering: John Paul II’s Victory
According to the idiosyncratic twentieth-century French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil, “Order is the first need of all.” She wrote this line while enumerating the needs of the human soul, and defined order as “a texture of social relationships such that no one is compelled to violate imperative obligations in order to carry out other… Read More Conservatives Must Increase Economic Security Not Undermine It
“The poor will always be with you” (Deut. 15:11). Many of us are familiar with this verse, and many are also quick to quote it. But what about this passage just a few verses earlier: “There shall be no poor among you, if only you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing this… Read More There Shall Be No Poor among You
Though the conflict in Syria is raging less than 50 miles away from my home in Amman and the effects of the war can be seen and felt in countless ways throughout the country, I have lacked much of any emotional reaction to the horrific humanitarian, cultural, and environmental destruction that is occurring just beyond… Read More Fr. Frans, Holy Week, and Paradoxical Tears
“Sorry guys, I won’t be eating dinner with you next week. I’m doing a live-in at the Marianist Sisters’ house.” One of my best friends I had met during my first year at college was very open with us about her discernment of religious life. In the moments after she made this announcement to the… Read More Student Loan Debt vs. Vocations
Millennial 