How can we embrace poverty as a way to God when everyone around us wants to become rich? Poverty has many forms. We have to ask ourselves: 'What is my poverty?' Is it lack of money, lack of emotional...
Dear friends, I want you to hear this: what is said of Jesus is said of you. I know this can be hard to affirm. You are the beloved daughter or son of God. Can you believe it? Can you hear it not only...
Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.
Whatever happens to me in life, I must believe that somewhere, In the mess or madness of it all, There is a sacred potential—
This cry for mercy is possible only when we are willing to confess that somehow, somewhere, we ourselves have something to do with our losses. Crying for mercy is a recognition that blaming God, the w...
The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides the immense sorrow that has gone before. The
Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Jesus himself entered into this furnace. T...
Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is 'unceasing.' Sometimes we wi...
For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to av...
For many of us prayer means nothing more than speaking with God. And since it usually seems to be a quite one-sided affair, prayer simply means talking to God. This idea is enough to create great frus...
In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us.
Truly accepting love, forgiveness, and healing is often much harder than giving it.
A spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.
We often live as if our happiness depended on having. But I don't know anyone who is really happy because of what he or she has. True joy, happiness, and inner peace come from the giving of ourselves...
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3:8 NRSV). To be born of...
Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life...
Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, 'Prove that you are a good person.' Another voice says, 'You’d better be ashamed of yourself.' There also is a voice that says, 'Nobody r...
Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.
God rejoices when one repentant sinner returns. Statistically that is not very interesting. But for God, numbers never seem to matter. Who knows whether the world is kept from destruction because of o...
Am I afraid to die? I am every time I let myself be seduced by the noisy voices of my world telling me that my little life is all I have and advising me to cling to it with all my might. But when I le...