Commonweal’s Best Spiritual Writing

Article

Awakening

As a result of a recent vogue for feeling culturally embattled, the word “Christian” now is seen less as identifying an ethic, and more as identifying a demographic.

By Marilynne Robinson

October 22, 2015

Article

Embracing Our Limits

Francis's encyclical contains a fundamental lesson: We are not the source of meaning or value; if we believe we are, we exchange the real world for a virtual one.

September 23, 2015

Article

The Other Guy

There is a certain malaise in the Catholic Church when it comes to the Holy Spirit. We do not quite know what to say.

By Jerry Ryan

June 21, 2017

Spirituality

Theology

Georges Seurat, Le Bec du Hoc à Grandcamp, 1885

Feature

Hallowing the Gaps

God’s ineffability demands a creative use of language

By Robert M. Pennoyer II

June 14, 2017

Spirituality

Secularism and Modernity

Article

How had I come to think that I would find solace on a route marked by swords?

The Hardest Blessing

By Rebecca Collins

May 22, 2017

Spirituality

Feature

Leonard Cohen’s Biblical Vision

If Leonard Cohen failed to live at the center of righteousness, he maintained a sense of where that center remained, and of how to find it again in prayer

April 27, 2017

Article

Only a minority of Christians believe in a physical resurrection, be it Christ’s or ours. But there's no getting away from the claim

Real & Unimaginable

By Jerry Ryan

April 24, 2017

Spirituality

Theology

The Last Word

Article

Hell, Population Zero

The church historically has not been kind to the idea of universal salvation. But there have always been theologians who dared to hope that hell would remain empty.

By Albert B. Hakim

December 2, 2015

Spirituality

Theology

Article

The Cry of Abel’s Blood

How can the Crucifixion—the murder of an innocent—be redemptive?

By Jerome A. Miller

April 14, 2017

Theology

Spirituality

Feature

All Will Be Well

When facing the problem of evil, we must start where we are: in the thick of it.

By Denys Turner

January 31, 2021

Theology

Spirituality

Portrait of Dostoyevsky by Vasily Perov, 1872

Article

My Idiopathic Easter

A novelist with epilepsy reflects on the supposed spiritual dimension of the illness

By Peter Quinn

April 12, 2017

Books

Spirituality

Article

Waiting while depressed is like being anywhere but the present

Why Keep Waiting?

By Nathan Paxton

June 23, 2016

Religious Life

Secularism and Modernity

Spirituality

Article

I’ve never liked going to church, but I’ll spend two hours here

Crumbs of Grace

By Clare Coffey

April 15, 2015

U.S. Catholicism

Ethics

Jewish-Christian Relations

Liturgy

Middle East

Muslim-Christian Relations

Article

A Joy, Not a Nuisance

People with disabilities present us with a mystery, Jean Vanier once explained; they are the very presence of Jesus. There is something particular in their kindness.

By Michael W. Higgins

December 15, 2015

Article

'The God of Walkers'

Bruce Chatwin casts travel as an act of sacrifice, of “sloughing-off” the world and discovering the self anew. His work contains moments of aching spirituality.

By Tara Isabella Burton

January 28, 2016

Article

'Lovely in Eyes Not His'

For the men I met with for a biweekly seminar at a mid-level security prison, the biblical struggle with Satan is an everyday affair, expressed in just those terms.

By Edward T. Wheeler

December 17, 2015

Domestic Affairs

Continuing the Conversation

Article

The River Runs On

Norman Maclean couldn’t quite trust Christianity’s promise of redemption

By Timothy P. Schilling

January 13, 2016

Article

The Beginning of the End

Judas takes hold of Christ, pressing himself on him: arm, beard, lips. A soldier in gleaming armor goes for Christ’s neck. A young man flees: John the Evangelist.

By Paul Elie

October 29, 2015

Arts

Secularism and Modernity

Spirituality

Theology

Article

The 4 p.m. Blues

If today the world and the self are devalued, as Walker Percy has suggested, art—particularly the novel— can awaken the reader to their recovery from '4 p.m. blues.'

December 2, 2015

Article

‘Perhaps It Is True After All’

Problems with faith cross religious boundaries. Here are the fruits of a conversation that I’ve been conducting, with my friend and in my mind, for a long time.

November 17, 2016