Death is the end of a journey, but also the beginning of a new one. Like a river, life continues to flow, so I can either try to stay stagnant and fight against the stream of life or let myself be carried to a new tributary.
Posts in Spirituality
Poem: Sacred Heart of Jesus, Help Me Live (Not Just Read) the Scriptures
Why is it so much easier to read the Scriptures rather than live them? Michael Martínez SJ’s poem asks for the fire of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to inflame our own hearts into prophetic action.
The Unexpected Joy of Cleaning Your Room
For me cleaning is hectic, but it is also a heck of a lot of fun. Joyful even! Finding old objects invokes time and place, like an engraved flask I got for being a groomsman when I was a teenager. There are also pictures of friends and receipts from meals long forgotten. I am also thinking of spiritual cleanings, and the moment to examine where I am and where I have been.
What’s the Point? Let’s ‘Examen’ the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
We have often heard about Jesus in books, art and sermons, but how well do we actually know him? Maybe that’s the whole point of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a devotion celebrated during the entire month of June. Here’s an Examen with the Sacred Heart of Christ.
How Seventh Graders Taught Me to Pray
It’s easy for me to offer Jesus a litany of tragedies I’ve read about in the news. I know plenty of dying parents and sick friends and incarcerated brothers worthy of my attention in prayer. But it’s amazing what young lives can teach about life and prayer when I pay attention to God at work around me.
The Problems With White Jesus
An excerpt from Patrick Saint-Jean, SJ’s new book, The Spiritual Work of Racial Justice: A Month of Meditations with Ignatius of Loyola
And The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round: On Death and Resurrection
The velorio, a gathering in the home of the deceased, is a Mexican tradition that allows loved ones to gather to share meals, memories and to mourn. And, even still, life around us is a reminder that not even death can conquer our hope.
What Do We Do When God Seems Lost to Us? Finding God in All Things, Even God’s Absence
Sometimes God can feel far away, silent, like a package we ordered but somehow got lost en route. Christopher Alt recalls how two empty tummies and a Persian poet reminds him that the gift of God’s presence can also be found in God’s absence.
This Jesuit Walked Across Asia in Disguise for Five Years
In 1602, Jesuit Brother Bento de Goës was sent on a five year excursion by land across Asia to search for a legendary kingdom of Christians supposedly located northeast of India and west of China.
Cancel Culture: Walking the Line Between Mercy and Justice
I’m living in the time of cancel culture. I notice that the news about cancel culture often triggers my temper because of how outrageous it can be. Although anger can be righteous whenever the news about cancel culture triggers my temper, I immediately want to react with everything I have. I want to ostracise the thing that causes harm to me and society. Those things do not deserve to exist, and, by wiping them out, society will be better, at least that’s what I think.