In The Brother’s Karamazov, Ivan Karamazov, the would-be positivist, had a break down, and during it, he believed he encountered the devil. It was due to that experience he came to believe God must exist. He reasoned that if the devil exists, so must God. To carry the logic further, it is the notion that if evil exists (in a conventional sense, because, ontologically, evil does not exist), then so must the good, and if the good exists, then the... Read more
Christ calls Christians to the path of salvation, to the way of radical love. We are told we must die to ourselves, that is, overcome all our self-serving ways which get in the way of the common good. That is, the love which Christ would have us follow is one which has us transcend our private interests. We are called to care for everyone, not just our friends and immediate family. We are not to be more concerned for those... Read more
We all desire peace. We seek it out. But, sadly, we often do not want to do what is required to obtain it; instead, we give in to the temptation offered by a perverse form of pseudo-peace, such the kind of “peace” which is established by treats of violence, that is, by way “of the sword.” What lies behind such a sham is pride and hatred; the fruit of such a false peace will be revealed by the harm which... Read more
The world and all that is in it is itself a part of God’s divine revelation: God established it in a word because it is in and through the Word, the Logos, that it was (or is) made. Everything participates in the Word by reflecting that word in themselves. Everything has their own particular word, their own essence, given to it by the Word of God: Words exist only because there is the Word, and there are idea-meanings only because... Read more
The first undergraduate course I taught was Ways of Peace in World Religions. I tried to provide a variety of texts from various religious traditions to help the class see what people of different faiths not only meant by the term peace, but the way they viewed how peace could and should be achieved. From the Buddhist tradition, I included a work from Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner from Myanmar (Burma). At that time, her... Read more
God is great. The record of salvation history found within Holy Scripture provides us many examples of that greatness. It shows us people who have had encounters with God which changed them for the better. We read, for example, of the relationship between God and Abraham: Abraham, out of great faith, followed God without knowing his destination. Because of his fidelity, God was with Abraham, helping him in his time of need, such as when Abraham went to rescue Lot.... Read more
In his letters, J.R.R. Tolkien explained to Camilla Unwin what he thought life was about: So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in the Gloria in Excelsis: Laudamus te, benedicamus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te, gratias agimus tibi propter... Read more
Children are important, they have value; their innocence and the way they rely upon others for their protection has God look upon them with great care and concern just as God looks upon with concern the poor and others who have little to no power of their own in the society they live in. We often remember how Jesus told us that what we do to the least in society we do to him, but we often forget he also... Read more
Sometimes, I think many so-called conservative and traditional Catholics look for any excuse they can to mock the Pope. Most of the time, however, it seems that in reality they mock the Pope because they hold to anti-Catholic ideologies which come from their political alliances, ideologies they want to force upon Catholicism. To do this, they challenge the Pope and ridicule him whenever he speaks or acts contrary to their political agenda. I believe this is how we are to... Read more
We are called to be holy, and so, to a special kind of purity. We need to make ourselves ready for the presence of God, to welcome that presence in ourselves, so that we can be a proper temple of God. “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1 RSV). We are to fear God, not in the sense... Read more
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