We can define ritual as a re-enactment of a previous event, in some cases a traumatic one, within the safety of sympathetic relationships. Its objective is not to repeat the trauma, but to bring resolution to it. Taking part in a ritual can evoke the deepest human experience of joy, grief or pain as
From Our Archives
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A War on Children
My friend Sunday Obote was just 7 years old when the Lord’s Resistance Army stormed his family home in northern Uganda one night in 1994. The L.R.A. is a rebellious guerrilla group that opposes the military government of Uganda, a land-locked nation in east-central Africa. And yes, the L.R.A.
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The New Name for Peace
Andrew S. Natsios, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, sent a shudder through the room at a food aid conference in Kansas City, Mo., in May when he said that food aid to the survivors of disasters is a higher priority than aid for development programs. Two-thirds to thre
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Unfinished Work
As we mark this month the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s “Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions,” the Israeli government has taken numerous initiatives to increase awareness of the document that did away with the s
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Our Daily Bread
The year of the Eucharist, inaugurated by Pope John Paul II in October 2004, will conclude with the meeting this month of the World Synod of Bishops in Rome. This assembly of bishops will also mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Synod of Bishops. While post-synodal papal exhortatio
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Christ Among Us
The Gospels are filled with stories of Jesus sharing meals not only with his disciples but also with many others, whether important or lowly. Indeed, table fellowship was one of the frequent events by which the disciples experienced their personal relationship with Christ. After the resurrection, th
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Not Where, But Why
In the task of designing church interiors, one of the most neuralgic issues is the placement of the tabernacle. Behind the altar? To the side of the altar? In a separate chapel? In recent years, the visual prominence of the tabernacle, not the centrality of the altar, seems to have become for some t
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Sending Us Forth
The working document, or instrumentum laboris, for the World Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist that meets this month in Rome begins with a beautiful reflection on the symbolic meaning of bread for the life of the world. This reflects the grave concern expressed by readers of an early draft about the
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Flight From New Orleans
Getting out of New Orleans has never been as easy as getting in. The city has too much magnetic charm. At least it used to. Expecting in this case, however, that getting back in might be harder than getting out, my Jesuit community and I had decided to ride out Hurricane Katrina at our downtown chur
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Katrina’s Rainbow
New Orleans was the first city that felt like family to me, and because I had moved so much growing up, family was the only thing I understood as home. A year after I graduated from Loyola University New Orleans, I was in New York City serving a volunteer year and planning to move back as soon as I