In Augustine’s Confessions (IV, 12, 19), he connects Mary, mother of Jesus and the church by quoting Isaiah 46:8 where the prophet says “Return to the heart.” Here is the quote: “Christ, our life, came down to us and delivered us from death, killing death itself with...
“Eve looks forward to Mary, and her very name ‘Mother of all the living’ (Gen.3:20) is a mysterious presage of the future, for Life itself was born of Mary, whence she became more fully ‘the Mother of all the living’ . . . Nor can we see the passage ‘I… To...
The Christian imagination enchants the world with a haunting presence, not that of leprechauns, gnomes, gremlins and ghosts, but the haunting, gracing presence of the Holy Spirit. We need the Christian imagination to kick in because the world’s imagination authors a...
Ego Tantrum or Tantum Ergo . . . Whenever I feel like throwing an ego tantrum, I do my best to get to my computer and spend four minutes listening to “Tantum Ergo,” the last two verses of St. Thomas Aquinas’ hymn “Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium” which is...
God’s Gamble: The risk of love is a risk God took when God created humanity. The creation of humans was God made Vulnerable. In Welsh priest/poet R. S. Thomas’ portrayal of the creation of the world, “Making,” God pauses on the fifth day. Something is still missing....
“The Kingdom of God cannot be embraced by discursive language, but only hinted at in the lines of poetry, the melody of music, the perspective of art and the curvs of sculpture. It’s a commonsense language of weather, yeast, fishing, food and festivities.” John...
