The Catholic Church condemns animal cruelty. Does our consumption of animal products violate this teaching?
Posts in Spirituality
The Potter and the Bowl: In Whose Hands Do We Find Ourselves?
I’ve been throwing pottery for over a year now. For a while, I had the technique down, or at least down enough to center the clay and build from there. But lately, I have had the worst time centering the clay. As I sit with my struggles to center the clay, my mind wanders to the world around me: does anything feel centered these days?
For a Church That is Unafraid to Welcome Black People
A certain memory of Peter Claver is often used by Catholics to distance themselves from actually engaging in ministry or relationships with Black Americans. Yet this false image of Claver, rather than absolving Catholics of their responsibilities towards Black people, is rather an even more scathing indictment of our indifference. Our image of Claver is a call to all of us Catholics to be who he was not.
First Day Out of Prison: A Modern-Day Parable on Coming Out of the Pandemic and Into Lent
“This whole year has felt like a Lenten penance in the desert, so I’m not thinking about what to give up. Instead, I enter this season replaying images of that day with Javier.” Christopher Alt, SJ, recounts the story of his friend’s first day out of prison and considers what lessons it has for us as we see promises of the end of the pandemic and move into Lent.
5 Takeaways from SEEK21
Every other year, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) hosts its SEEK conference that draws thousands of young Catholics together to encounter Christ and share the Gospel. As a virtual event this year, SEEK21 was actually the largest it’s ever been, with 27,000 participants from 20 countries on 6 continents. Check out our 5 key takeaways.
Rend My Heart, O’God, the Opportunity of an Open Door
The prophet Joel extolls the people of God to rend their hearts and not their garments to be touched and broken and changed at a deeper level than what is visible, a profound, inner conversion, one of the heart. And God will find us in the most beautiful ways. All we have to do is open the door. Find out what happens when I open a door and start seeing Christ on the other side.
Is Defending God Always Helpful? Reflecting on O Death, Where is Thy Sting?
O Death, Where is Thy Sting: A Meditation on Suffering, a new book by Brother Joe Hoover doesn’t offer theodicies or justifications of God’s goodness; it is a collection of thoughts from a man trying to process the suffering in the world.
Six Months After the Blast: Thoughts on Human Fraternity from Beirut
In the aftermath of an explosion, COVID-19 lockdowns, and economic challenges, Pope Francis’s call to fraternity resounds in religiously pluralistic Beirut.
Review: Fr. James Martin’s New Book “Learning to Pray”
Have you ever wondered what happens when you pray? Or how to pray? Or even why to pray? Well Fr. James Martin has a book for that! Check out our review of “Learning to Pray”.
Jesus Found Me off-Broadway in Row K
I love musicals. I love watching them, discussing them, debating about them, criticizing them, comparing them. I work out listening to soundtracks from esoteric musicals from the 1960s. I appeared in musicals every year from when I was 5 to 22, and wrote a musical in lieu of a philosophy final. God can find us wherever we are, and God found me right where I love to be: in a theatre.