I love it because you saw something. No: rather, something invited your gaze to linger and see beauty, And you paused long enough to catch this wisp Before it passed like a plaything through the hands of a child. You will say that you just took a picture. You are young. I will [...]
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O Lord, I am Yosef. I am David’s son, heir to your holy promise to make of this people a great nation. But I am small and I am afraid. You have spoken to me in my dreams. I am where you have called me to be, here in this place of my ancestor’s birth, driven here [...]
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I love the narrow door— You know, the one at the school Where parents and children cram in At the beginning of the day at Saint Paul, Rushing to beat the bell. They are happy or tired or stressed, But always will smile and thank you For holding the door open So they can [...]
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In his well-known poem Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley observes something of the transience of all human effort. Writing about a massive statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, which appears in a stretch of desolate desert, he wonders what, in this vale of tears, really lasts. And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name [...]
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The Chinese Jesuit Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-hsi has died after a beautiful witness to life in the face of death, battling cancer for six years. Gerard O’Connell writes in Vatican Insider: On hearing of his death, Chinese Catholics worldwide prayed for him at masses in Taiwan, across mainland China, as well as in Hong [Kong], [...]
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Mount Manresa, a Jesuit retreat center on Staten Island, is closing after a century of retreat ministry. But far from stopping this valuable work, the Jesuits are adapting to changing cultural circumstances. “Actually, we might be going back to a much older model we used to have,” explained Father Edward Quinnan, S.J., the New York [...]
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Etty Hillesum, the young Jewish woman killed at Auschwitz who wrote beautiful diaries of life in Amsterdam, wrote movingly of finding beauty amidst suffering. most of us in the West don’t understand the art of suffering and experience a thousand fears instead. We cease to be alive, being full of fear, bitterness, hatred, and despair. [...]
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In this age when more and more people describe themselves as spiritual but not religious, it is helpful to recall Ignatius’s understanding of the purpose of prayer, devotions, and participation in liturgy. In what pertains to prayer, meditation, and study and also in regard to the bodily practices of fasts, vigils, and other austerities or [...]
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During Holy Week I’ve encountered two very different and yet equally profound meanings in the act of a kiss. The first, of course, is the act by which Judas symbolized his betrayal of Christ: a tender, intimate act which was a lie and a travesty. The other was the act by which we show reverence [...]
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My new favorite description of love is the willingness to enter a mess. It’s a pretty decent description of the Incarnation (or kenosis for you theologians out there); it captures the spirit of that oft-quoted passage from Matthew 25 about feeding Jesus when you feed the hungry. It’s pretty close to the sentiment that Ignatius [...]
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