“For my kids, using their imaginations isn’t just a way to pass the time; it’s a spiritual survival strategy, one that just might help us parents survive, too.”
Sr. Simone Campbell talks about how the courage to confront our own brokenness can bring about personal and political healing in this fractured moment.
Young people today are skeptical of institutions and have lower levels of trust in traditional kinds of authority. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
“Some days, although we cannot pray—because we are too busy, or because we are in too much pain, or simply because the words will not come—a prayer utters itself.”
Physical objects carry meaning for us, but their accumulation can be a kind of spiritual error. Reconciling this contradiction leads us to richer, deeper lives.
This time of pandemic and mass interracial demonstrations has revealed gaping wounds in our body politic. The ancient homilist Origen can help us heal them.
Stephen Hough, one of the world’s greatest musical performers, speaks with us about bioethics, sacramentality, and the challenges of living as a gay Catholic.
The gift of the Holy Spirit allows us to passionately fight for the peace of Christ, a peace far greater than the one offered by oppressive authorities.
As cases of the novel coronavirus rise again across the United States, we’re reminded of our mortal fragility, but also of God’s promise of eternal life.
Summer’s here, and we’re reading new books by women writers about God, communal religious practice, and the strangeness of American life at the margins.
A Czech priest and writer, Fr. Tomáš Halík served as a spokesperson for the church during the Velvet Revolution. His autobiography is now available in English.
Pentecost readings can lead to easy, watered-down homiletics about unity amid diverse peoples. In response to the killing of George Floyd, the church must do more.
Mary Ward’s trajectory proves an axiom in church history: it is often those who suffer humbly and patiently from the church’s contradictions who end up redeeming it.
Dorothea Lange’s life of looking at others, especially those harmed by unjust systems, helped her see that victims were more than just their socioeconomic scars.
God is everywhere; for those who do not find him so easily in church pews, the ocean shore or a patterned turtle shell may be places to seek his presence.
Those of us stuck at home and not on the front lines can become numb. How should we feel about the hordes of lives being lost every day? How should we grieve?
Shouldn’t we be paying attention to those minor miracles of creation that occur all around us, even when we’re stuck at home? Marilynne Robinson can help.
The Mexican government has already ordered people to stay home, with Mexico City under lockdown. But in a small pueblo in the south, life continues as before.
Even as New York shows signs of progress, the toll of the coronavirus has been high. We speak with three people who’ve been dealing with the impact of the pandemic.
Isolation can foster new growth within families or communities despite physical separation, as we confront the crisis with generosity, solidarity, and care.
COVID-19 has profoundly affected our daily lives. Catch up with some of Commonweal’s best writing on the political and spiritual ramifications of the virus.
Some two decades ago, I took a cruise on the MS Zaandam. The Catholic rituals for the dead that I witnessed in Venezuela can help us process the death around us.
