Lent is a season of reflection—but also a season to prepare for the work ahead, to sweep aside everything that has not worked and find new ways through the desert.
We don’t know for certain what kind of branches were used to welcome Jesus in Jerusalem. What matters most is that Jesus came home, and his return was a victory.
"This Laetare Sunday, then, I do want to focus on God’s love and my sins in light of God’s love, but not to the point of apathy, and instead to the point of further struggle."
“Denial of the self is a traditional Christian spiritual practice that has its benefits, but this Lent I feel moved to a radical acceptance of the self.”
A faithful response to God’s call to evangelize is to sharpen our faces and our communities like flint—not as weapons, but as tools of creation and sustainability.
During Lent, we work to move with more determination toward our place of ultimate belonging. We have heard stories of that kingdom that cannot be un-heard.
Becoming a Christian is like the process of moving from childhood to adulthood. The realities of both are much more complex than the caricatures presented to us.
Remembering the deceased is an act of hope. Sharing our faith and experiences together can pull us out of the darkness and into the beauty of Jesus’ life.
“Even before Ash Wednesday, our lifestyle was rather Lenten. A kind of full-time fasting: vigilance when we’d like to rest, discipline when we’d like to indulge.”
“Authentic collaboration in the Church is possible only when women are seen as whole and necessary, not as challenges or threats to the ‘purity’ of clergy.”
Pilgrimage sites can be like trusted family elders: we need to visit them, respect them, and thank them for the ways they help us throughout our lives.
If the institutional Church takes seriously the call to synodality, then its clergy must be willing to humbly consider the Spirit that moves its people.
This Lent, the art of Lucio Fontana intensifies the insights of monastic spirituality. Even our worst crimes are pardoned by Christ’s extravagant mercy.
Powell and Pressburger’s seminal 1947 film about a group of Anglican nuns in India offers more than melodrama, as secondary characters reveal the face of Christ.
