Last evening many celebrated Halloween by dressing up in costumes that allowed them to temporarily assume different identities—some of these were intended to be scary, others just plain funny or ridiculous. A Masquerade Ball offers similar opportunities for concealing one’s identity and, as it were, stepping out from what some experience as the burden of […]

True familiarity with Christ inevitably transforms us into his likeness. Thus, to say that we know Christ without reflecting his likeness (even if not yet perfectly) is a contradiction in terms. Worship, prayer, and a life lived in conscious awareness of his presence are the usual contexts for this transformation. Nevertheless, it is quite possible […]

Abiding inner peace is an apparently elusive state and, typically, whatever peace does momentarily settle in our unsettled hearts is all too easily disturbed by people and circumstances outside ourselves. Accordingly, when in a state of inner peace, we encounter someone who is aggressive, angry, or irritated, our peace which was perhaps radiating from us, […]

Childhood fantasies and dreams of spiritual heroism often give way—in later life—to reality, disappointment, disillusionment, and spiritual stagnation. The life of Teresa, who as a child ran away from home in her quest for martyrdom among the Moors, followed this trajectory. After entering the Monastery of the Incarnation, she found herself gradually settling into a […]

The citizens of Capernaum’s prideful quest for exaltation will result (according to Jesus in today’s gospel), with their ignominious descent into the netherworld. That is somewhere near where the Babylonian exiles found themselves, burdened with what the text describes as their being flushed with shame—this shame reflecting, perhaps, their now wounded pridefulness. The “Little Way” […]