The gentle carol “Silent Night” can quiet hearts whirling with holiday worry. Consistently included in curated lists of favorite Christmas carols, "Silent Night" offers us a moment to slip into grateful contemplation of the “holy Infant, so tender and mild." Though we know the words by heart, Father Joseph Mohr, the priest who penned this … Continue reading The Priest Who Penned “Silent Night”
On the morning of August 9, 1945, physician and radiology professor Takashi Nagai was preparing a lecture in his office in the Nagasaki Medical College Hospital. Just a few days before, on hearing news of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Nagai had sent his children Matoko and Kayana to live with their grandmother four … Continue reading An “Absolute Refusal to Hate”: Takashi Nagai and A Song for Nagasaki
Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan (1928-2002) was raised in a devout Vietnamese family with a memory of horrific religious persecution in the complicated history of Vietnamese Catholicism. His grandfather’s cousin “Aunt Lien” was present when, in 1885, the Catholics of Dai Phong gathered in their church to escape a raid when the church’s bamboo roof … Continue reading Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan’s “Solitary” School of Love
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not/keep that vigil, how they must have wept/so utterly human, knowing this too/must be part of the story. — Mary Oliver One of the reasons I believe the gospels are true is the realistic portrayal of Christ's disciples. They leave everything–fishing nets, families, worldly wealth, everything–to … Continue reading The Utterly Human Peter: Lord, Save Me
In 1933, a 29-year-old French social worker moved to a communist suburb southeast of Paris to begin a remarkable undertaking. Madeleine Delbrêl and the women who joined her would live Gospel-infused lives in a working-class city dominated by Marxist ideology. Madeleine's life witnesses to the grace God can grant when souls commit themselves to love … Continue reading Engagement and Love: Madeleine Delbrêl’s Mission to Marxists and the “Ordinary People of the Streets”
A priest who served our parish a few years ago made an unforgettable request of us one Sunday morning. Father Stephen had often reminded us of our material blessings. A joyful Nigerian, he commented many times about how much, in the midst of all our possessions, we Americans complain. This, in a semi-arid mountain valley … Continue reading The Day I Left my Shoes at Church
Sarah Clarkson, in her incredibleThis Beautiful Truth: How God’s Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness, describes her Holy Saturday during the Covid 19 lockdown of 2020. She’d been out for a walk on the downs near her English home, where in the first phase of the pandemic she was allowed only one walk a day. “The … Continue reading Halloween, Holy Time and our Longing for “Days that Are Different”
The pandemic's reality was slow to strike my relatively isolated, poverty-stricken mountain valley. For weeks we watched the worldwide spread of COVID-19 through phones, laptops and television screens, but our lives were going on as usual. In mid-March, everyone at my little school left for spring break and there still wasn't a case in our … Continue reading The Prisoner and the Pandemic: The Gift of the Right Read at the Right Time
"Simon, Simon, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat." I find those words some of the most troubling in all scripture. I know what happened next. The night of Christ's execution was the night of Peter's sifting. The overconfident man whose passion for Christ was so strong he proclaimed that … Continue reading Satan’s Sifter: Why Judging Others Is Always Wrong
She never shied away from the contentions of political engagement. She practiced what she preached, responding to the wretchedness of Depression-era poverty by co-founding a movement that established a newspaper, communal farms and "Houses of Hospitality" for the homeless. She had an abortion as a young woman but would ultimately regret it and defend human … Continue reading Toward Authenticity in the Cultural Moment: Three Lessons from Dorothy Day
