Life teaches us that true gratitude is invoked spontaneously, by utterance, not by canned speech. Perhaps this is why I can’t easily summon memories of Thanksgiving.
Current students are taught by lay people. Our teachers were Benedictine monks, and teaching only begins to describe the role those virtuous men played in our lives.
I will wear sweatshirts with bright appliqués / Of owls, and work for Head Start. Saturdays //
Will be the food bank; Sundays, church at ten. / Evenings I'll...
Arch after arch set in the brick, / Rosettes along them, pebble-thick; // Draped, helmed, armed figures, scribes with scrolls, / And eagles in their leafy holes:...
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.
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.
Preachers have told stories in a variety of ways over the centuries. But preaching in the U.S. has seen a shift from typology to illustration as the prevailing mode.
Does Montaigne resemble the contemporary essayist who writes about faith? The short answer is that he does not—at least not in easily recognizable ways.
The best-selling author and founding pastor of the House for All Sinners and Saints Lutheran congregation talks about unsaintly saints, purity codes, and more.
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.
Vatican announces who will and will not be attending round two of the Synod; Hungarian cardinal silent on refugee crisis; Heated debates over paving stones in Rome.
Spanning almost James Agee's entire lifetime, these letters between author and his priest cover alcohol, God, poetry, childhood, and a “mouthful of sweet potato.”
At the Fifth Station of the Cross / I am asked to “accept in particular / the death that is destined for me” / Which I must keep myself from guessing...
Dying is an adult activity. This has been one of its bigger surprises for me. I find I need to leave behind the child side of myself to go where I now need to go.
One of Merton’s gifts as a writer was the ability to insinuate himself into the lives of those he'd never met and remain a personal presence decades after his death.
When the priest said “The Mass is ended, alleluia,” she burst out laughing. As a guest at Mass, she sensed the beauty of Catholic worship, and also its strangeness.
Asleep, she has no idea she is old. // She’s running uphill, no lightfoot, but quite fast /
past the houses and driveways of family friends / toward the higher...
Laura Swan does a good job of explaining both the beguines’ spiritual practices in the context of their own times and how their continuing legacy affects us today.
The African-American Christian tradition has been vital in our history for reasons of the spirit but also as a reminder that the Bible is a subversive book.
Restoring the order of the sacraments of initiation for children of Catholic parents might help us see adolescent catechesis as a worthy endeavor in its own right.
The core liberal conviction about the Supreme Court still rings true: it is most constructive when power is used to vindicate the rights of beleaguered minorities.
Paul Moses's history of Irish-Italian relations in 19th century New York delves into the causes for "race war" between the immigrant groups and how they overcame it.
The countryside is the bedrock of Chinese traditions and of Chinese Catholicism. But urbanization and government pressure are threats to these enduring communities.
Francis's week: talking church reform with cardinals and peace with Vladimir Putin. And saints' bodies are en route to Rome. Is Francis reviving medieval devotions?
A preview of upcoming papal visits at home, abroad and with Italian protestants. And the press turns Francis's list of "attacks on life" into an abortion debate.
Many people in the West who do not share Christian faith nonetheless share with Christians many of the key ethical values that energize democratic political life.
Readers "angered at the tortured logic of the editors" respond to the removal of Bishop Finn, Francis's failures, the value of "big history," and how to know Jesus.
Cardinal Parolin calls Ireland's gay marriage victory a "defeat for humanity"; progressives and traditionalists hold secret meetings to discuss Synod on the Family.
Oscar Romero will be declared a martyr, Francis tells bishops to stop "trying to tell Catholics what to do all the time," and cardinals deny the pope has enemies.
Unlike past Eurocentric taxonomies of world religions, the latest Norton anthology aims to let six major, living, international religions speak...in their own words.
