After four decades in education, both secular and Catholic, I have witnessed teaching models come and go. The moment before us, however, is not a passing phase; it is a threshold.
Spirituality
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
What is spiritual desolation—and how does God get us out of it?
“The definition of desolation is notoriously slippery,” Father James Martin writes. “It is not simply a period of dryness in prayer, which is common to everyone.”
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
A trauma-informed guide to prayer
Trauma-informed spirituality knows better than to promise that prayer will take away all the pain. But it can offer the hope that, even in the midst of pain, there can be moments of feeling whole.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
A Jesuit guide to aging and retirement
You’ve got a 401K. But do you have a spiritual retirement plan?
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
Father James Martin and Anthea Butler on the problem with the prosperity gospel
If we imagine ourselves as satisfying a God who will “give us” things only if we do the “right things,” then our relationship with God becomes less a friendship and more a chore.
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
The mystical experience that brought Stephen Colbert (back) to the Catholic faith
This week on “The Spiritual Life,” Father James Martin speaks with Stephen Colbert about his experience of being a “fallen away” Catholic and returning to the faith.
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
Mary Karr on being brutally honest with God
“One of the things I find most appealing about the award-winning writer and poet Mary Karr is her forthright, almost brutal, honesty.”
Posted inFaith, Features
A Vatican reporter on keeping the faith amid the Catholic Church’s scandals
What happened when the place I had gone for consolation became the focus of my anger
Posted inFaith
Pete Buttigieg on identity and faith in public life
This week on “The Spiritual Life,” Father James Martin speaks with former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg about faith, fatherhood and his “Jesuit background.”
Posted inFaith and Reason
Roger Haight on new ways of thinking about the church
In a time of increasing disaffiliation from and disillusionment with the institutional church, a new theological perspective on the church is needed—one that places Jesus’ own teaching at the center.