Father Rolheiser’s approach helps us see celibacy not simply as an ascetic practice for the sake of denying ourselves but as intentional solidarity with the loneliest people in the world.
Spirituality
Posted inFaith in Focus
From Spectacle to Sacrament: How Burning Man led me into the Catholic Church
For years, Burning Man felt like my spiritual homeland. But then something shifted. The illusion of unbridled freedom began to crack. A question broke through: Is this all there is?
Posted inPodcasts
Father James Martin on what he learned from the youngest woman at the Synod
Julia Oseka was the youngest woman delegate at the Synod on Synodality in Rome—and held her own in conversations with patriarchs, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, lay men and women theologians.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: A bridge between Christian and Hindu mysticism
In ‘Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar,’ the Rev. Francis X. Clooney tells the story of his lifelong engagement in dialogue with the Hindu tradition—as a Jesuit priest.
Posted inPodcasts
Ross Douthat and Father James Martin on God’s role in suffering
God does not make us suffer in order to teach us lessons. Rather, if we are open to it, and with God’s grace, we will learn from experiences of suffering.
Posted inBooks
Review: With God at Walden Pond
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.
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.