Sometimes, the truth is far stranger than fiction. In September of 2012, the world learned that Jesus of Nazareth had a wife named Mary, or so the newspaper headlines read. Harvard Divinity School Professor Karen King announced to a frenzied media that a new ancient text had surfaced in which Jesus speaks of his wife. […]
John P. McNamee’s 1995 memoir, Diary of a City Priest, traces a year of his parish ministry in inner-city Philadelphia. It’s a tough read. McNamee does his best to minister spiritually and physically to parishioners and neighbors alike, aware at all times that his efforts don’t begin to budge the needle of intergenerational poverty and […]
Everyone is born a king, and most people die in exile. – Oscar Wilde With each passing season, the pandemic somehow feels fresh and new as it claims yet another area of life that had been previously untouched. This year’s Easter, lacking its usual fanfare, somberly came and went. Months later, a gloomy Fourth of […]
1. A happy ending for a recovering alcoholic who was rescued from drowning by Paulist priests sailing by on a tiki bar pontoon. Not everything about 2020 is awful, folks! 2. In the first of two book reviews for your consideration this week, Judith Shulevitz reviews The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West […]
The reflection comes to us from Casey Wilson: We are puzzle pieces. A strange thing to say, but it is true. Ever wondered what your purpose is? Or struggled with your identity? Or wonder where your life fits into the bigger picture in relation to the people around you? I’ve had moments like these in […]
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. (2 Cor 4:16) The last day of summer hasn’t officially arrived, but it’s been autumn in my heart for over a week already. Foretastes of fall have been filtering in all this time, heralding […]
There’s so much to love in Simeon Zahl’s latest monograph, The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience. In addition to being a theological tour de force, the book offers numerous outstanding reflections on how theology might explain the experiences of everyday life. The following comes from Chapter 4, “Grace in Experience”, pp. 172-75 (emphasisadded). [A vital […]
Grateful for this post from Blake Nail: Anyone who’s been to the grocery store is well aware of the temptation gnawing at you as the cart is emptied into the back of the car and an option is now presented before you. The cart corral is perhaps an aisle over, or maybe the sun has […]
I think this is a remix of something Key Life’s Steve Brown once said, but the aged man who’s been in church longer than you’ve been alive isn’t necessarily holier than you; he’s just more tired. The fact that he no longer acts on impulses which drove him in his adolescence is due less to […]
After speaking at our conference last year, Leslie Jamison recommended a book that she had read in one sitting: Jamie Quatro’s Fire Sermon. Aptly named, this inferno of a novel is about desire, transgression, self-loathing and acceptance; I, too, read it quickly (not in one sitting, but quickly!). The protagonist, Maggie, is a writer wrestling […]
I have a number of behavior patterns that have been with me for many years. One of the joys of getting older is realizing that all the cycles and habits you thought you would outgrow are still with you and will most likely be with you forever. One of my behavior patterns is a cycle […]
