In ‘Thoreau’s God,’ Richard Higgins takes the reader on a fascinating journey through Thoreau’s extensive work, looking at the ways the philosopher thought about the divine and the human relation to the divine.
Spirituality
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
Is there an ‘upside’ to aging? Sister Joyce Rupp thinks so.
Nothing in my life has been as freeing as the realization that not everyone is going to love, like or approve of me.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
Theater as sacramental: How drama can deepen our spiritual lives
Drama can teach us active listening and public speaking, yes; but on a deeper level, it can shape our spiritual disposition.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Praying for strangers—even online—is a transformative spiritual practice
We need to pray for the person whose real identity and full story we do not know. Because that is everyone.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Movie Club
Catholic Movie Club: St. Paul on the road to Damascus—but make it sci-fi
In Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” an ordinary electrician has a transcendent encounter—with U.F.O.s, not God.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
The era of essays and exams is ending. It’s time to educate for mystical intelligence.
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.
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.