The gift of a scattered mind is that it reaches to the limits of everything I know and grasps to make sense of it. It’s the only way that a new baby girl, a recollection of old habits, a life in religious community, and a global pandemic can come together and remind me that love is greater than fear. Love is the only thing that brings my mind back to center.
TJP has a new resource to share! We have received lots of feedback over the years from educators and ministers who use our content in the classroom, on retreats, and for faculty formation. Introducing, the TJP Curriculum Guide. This guide includes articles and videos published by TJP, organized by nearly twenty different themes, with hyperlinks to the content. Check out the list of themes and click the link to view and download the new TJP Curriculum Guide.
Both the season of Lent and the current coronavirus crisis are desert experiences. Just as we adapt new practices during Lent, we are experiencing radical changes in our lives with the spread of COVID-19. Last month, we reached out to TJP readers about how they are praying, fasting, and giving alms this year. Many of you responded. Read the responses, along with the graces that readers are receiving. You’ll find that these words echo even stronger amid the uncertainty and anxiety of the current crisis.
One of the great images of Lent is Jesus being driven into the desert where he goes toe-to-toe with Satan. As real as Jesus’ temptations are to pleasure, fame, and power, they are but expressions of a more fundamental and deceptively obvious one: the temptation to forget who and whose you are.
There is something I find at Mass on Ash Wednesday that I don’t find elsewhere. Nowhere besides here do I step in line with old ladies in purple sweaters, fellow students, elderly widows, the nuns, the homeless, the workers on lunch hour, the priests, and the University president to face our shame, imperfections, and our transgressions, together.
Ash Wednesday is just one week away. Before you decide to give up candy or french fries or even Facebook, I encourage you to take some advice: do nothing.
The mystery of wonder involved in the Spiritual Exercises consists of meeting people in their spiritual journeys with God. The wonder includes accompanying with love and compassion, helping people remember they are precious creatures of creation.
I’m a proud son of Green Bay, WI, and I have plenty of Packers apparel in my wardrobe. The other day I was at the gym, and given my workout clothing rotation, it happened that I was wearing a Packers t-shirt and shorts – green and gold from head to toe.
“And when you are before God, utterly defenseless, then you will see the love of God…”
A stately-looking older gentleman walked into the classroom and introduced himself as the professor. After a terse jaunt through the syllabus, he looked up from the podium suddenly and posed the question: Who here believes that a person can change?