When a day trip to New Hampshire’s White Mountains came up this past weekend, some friends and I considered ways to enjoy the great outdoors and the explosion of fall colors in the Northeast. Surely, this was a place to practice my newfound parkour passion. Read what happens when I have to let go and let God.
There are times when I don’t want to accept my present circumstances, so I enter another world with more novelty and excitement. Yet when I turn back to reality, that world evaporates and I am left feeling more alone and discouraged than before. A recent chance meeting with someone broke through this fog of drudgery to reignite the roots of life within me, reminding me to keep my faith in what God places before me each day, no matter how small or mundane.
As I write this post, my absentee ballot is sitting next to me, still blank. There are Catholics who say the choice is simple. There is only one issue that matters. But the stories I heard suggest it is more complicated.
I am far from the only person who has ever been frustrated by prayer in which “nothing happens.” In fact, I hear this quite regularly from people sharing their spiritual lives. We want to experience our prayer as we do almost everything else: productively. We wish to finish a time in prayer feeling that we have accomplished something, learned something, moved forward, or used our time well.
It took two weeks of monotony and uncertainty to realize what I really relied on. And in my most recent quarantine, I experienced what millions around the world have been going through since March. And it’s something I pray we can all return to again, in person, to celebrate the ultimate celebration.
Patrick Saint-Jean, SJ, once again invites to consider another “One Moment for One Thing.” Let us discover how to get in touch with what we feel while examining our heart and soul to more clearly experience the greater glory of God in our lives and in the world around us. Pray with us once again as we move towards a deeper and clearer relationship with ourselves, hand-in-hand with God.
TJP has an updated resource to share! Last Spring, we debuted the TJP Curriculum Guide. This guide includes articles and videos published by TJP, organized into twenty different themes, with hyperlinks to the content. This can be useful in classrooms, for retreats, for faculty formation, or however else you might find helpful. Check out the list of themes and download the updated TJP Curriculum Guide.
You’re having a baby! Congratulations! We’re here to help you answer a few questions about Catholic baptism. How do I plan a baptism? How do I choose godparents? What happens during a baptism?
America first! Black Lives Matter! Law and order. Structures of oppression. Amid the turmoil of our world today, the words of the great Old Testament prophet Jeremiah continue to speak to us. What does he call us to today?
Eric Immel, SJ, writes: “I spent more time in my room these past nearly six months that I had the previous, say, four years combined. The same is true for the number of times I’ve washed my hands. I’ve high-fived less people in the past nearly six months than was typical for me in a day pre-COVID, and I cannot count the number of times I’ve wanted to yell at people for getting too close to me, which I don’t think I’d ever thought to do before in my life.” Eric takes us on journey of a small world that opens up to something larger than previously thought.