Part 6 on Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire A few years back a Presbyterian pastor gave a sermon on thin places. I hadn’t heard that term before but have several times since. Thin places are places “where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and we’re able to catch glimpses of the divine, or the transcendent….” That’s how a New York Times article describes them. Travel brochures say there are a lot of thin places in Ireland and Scotland. ... Read more
One of the reasons I like national public radio is that it recognizes that religion is a part of America’s life and treats religious beliefs without ridicule or cynicism. Saturday it was about butterflies, the afterlife, and an experiment on what happens to a caterpillar’s memory in the pupa stage. Since it’s Easter time and we’re talking butterflies (actually moths in the experiment), the symbolism concerning life after death was just below the surface. The radio presenters didn’t hesitate to... Read more
People used to say, “I’m from Missouri, show me” — and you didn’t even have to be from Missouri. We still hear about the skeptical age that we’re supposedly in. When it comes to social media, however, gullible is more like it. Where is St. Thomas when we need him? In John’s Gospel Jesus appears to the disciples Easter Sunday evening. Thomas was not with them and refused to believe their story. A week later Jesus again appeared. Thomas was... Read more
A New Zealand parish priest has an interesting take on the Church’s liturgical response to the coronavirus pandemic. Father J. P. Grayland says our clerical bias is showing. What is the place of the baptized lay faithful, Father Grayland wonders, when the Church’s public liturgy can happen without lay people present? Grayland describes himself as “pastor of three parishes in a small rural diocese in a small, secular country.” A priest for 30 years, he has written books, including Catholics.... Read more
An Imaginative Economic Venture This is a strange economic time, this time of the covid-19 pandemic. Republicans who criticized Obama for spending hundreds of billions to pull the economy out of a recession are now spending trillions to accomplish the same thing. The super rich are coming under pressure to donate some of their billions to researching a corona cure and to charities combating economic devastation. Debt relief on the personal and national levels is a prominent discussion topic among... Read more
I just added a pandemic prayer, Pope Francis’ “Prayer to Mary during Coronavirus Pandemic,” to my daily prayer routine. Here is this beautiful prayer, translated by Catholic News Service: Prayer to Mary during coronavirus pandemic O Mary, you always shine on our path as a sign of salvation and of hope. We entrust ourselves to you, Health of the Sick, who at the cross took part in Jesus’ pain, keeping your faith firm. You, Salvation of the Roman People, know... Read more
Who am I? It’s a question addressed in parlor games, odd moments of reflection and the dense prose of theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Wading through The von Balthasar Reader, I got to a short section on what it means to be a person. Balthasar names two approaches to an answer. I can compile a list of things that make me unique among all the human species. Or I can get to the heart of the matter and risk encountering... Read more
Today Common Prayer for Ordinary Radicals remembers the not-so-ordinary radical Oscar Romero. It is the day in 1980 that Bishop Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass. He became a target of the repressive government of El Salvador because of his commitment to social justice and prophetic advocacy for the poor. Workers, not master builders Common Prayer gives us this quote from Romero’s writings. It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The Kingdom is not... Read more
Before the corona virus epidemic, I was a climate change pessimist. I’m a bit more hopeful now, and that might seem strange. But consider: We’ve gone in a very short time from “It’s just another flu” to social distancing. People are actually working hard at solving this one crisis. Maybe that experience is transferable to a crisis that is similar. Anyway, today I’m thinking about what we can learn from corona. We’re still sleeping through the climate crisis, but corona... Read more
I’m reading the e-mails of Rachel Corrie, whom I’m counting among the “ordinary radicals” of my series of posts on that theme. A short paragraph in the March 16 entry of Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals brought into my world this courageous human being and another way of living humanly. Rachel Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003, by an Israeli bulldozer on the streets of Rafah in Gaza. She was trying to protect the home of a... Read more
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