Pay heed to this, you who pray on the run but dally with books, you who are fervent in reading and lukewarm in praying.  Reading should serve prayer, should dispose the affections, should neither devour the hours nor gobble up the moments of prayer.  When you read you are taught about Christ, but when you […]

Each one’s heart is a sailing boat [that cannot] be wrecked so long as we fill our minds only with what is good. When you have to listen to abuse, that means you are being buffeted by the wind; when your anger is roused, you are being tossed by the waves. So when the winds […]

In John the Baptist’s acknowledgment, I recognize a very constant dynamic of the spiritual life: I did not know him…But when John saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him, then he knows that Jesus is the Son of God.    One of my favorite passages in the Book […]

10 January, Friday after Epiphany: 1 Jn 5:5-13; Lk 5:12-16     A couple of days ago, in Mark’s Gospel, we heard that Jesus had withdrawn to pray; today, in Luke’s Gospel we’re told that he’d withdraw to deserted places to pray.     As we digest the richness of this Christmas season, let’s not reduce that […]

The celebration of the Baptism of the Lord (next Sunday) will mark the official ending of this short Christmas Season and the resumption of so-called “Ordinary Time.” This liturgical transition is a rather apt symbol of a similar process that takes place repeatedly in our spiritual lives—that is, a return to ordinariness. We have just […]

In a metaphorical sense, I could describe any mother, or any woman who plays the nurturing role of a mother, as bringing God into the world. The intimate care and close bond, which is much more than physical, as much as the words of teaching, can shape or deform a child’s sense of God. That […]

How appropriate to hear the Christ described as the light shining in the darkness when we’re just emerging from the shortest days of the year. It’s no accident that we celebrate the Nativity of the Lord in such a season which may help us understand better the mystery of the Word of God become flesh. […]

    From a human-interest point of view, there’s very little about Mary in Luke’s Gospel—but there is some such information. She’s close to her family and she’s a worrying, even scolding, mother to her adolescent son. Other details than these hold the Evangelist’s interest, while of dogmatic issues, like the Immaculate Conception, he displays no […]

A superficial observation of daily monastic life might well give the impression that we are guilty of the very thing that Jesus is warning against in his description of the behaviors of the people in the time of Noah. As monks we go about our very ordinary daily tasks in much the same way as […]

      We read in the Book of Deuteronomy:            When you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget your God, […]