If Hell is other people, what is Heaven? Here I riff on a statement taken from Jean Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit” to reflect not only upon Hell, but also upon Heaven. Jean Paul Sarte’s play “No Exit” is about three individuals trapped forever in Hell. They are confined to a room that is locked from the outside. They cannot close their eyes or escape one another’s apprehension and judgment. One of the characters laments at one point, “Hell Is... Read more
Today is known as “Divine Mercy Sunday” in the Roman Catholic calendar and is associated with Faustina Kowalska (later known as St. Faustina). She was a Polish girl of limited education and humble means. She lived and died during the Great Depression (1938) and marveled at God’s mercy for all people, especially those who are spiritually destitute. Now depending on how you look at life, Friday and Saturday leading up to today also displayed divine mercies. The awareness of divine... Read more
Some Christian traditions celebrate the Monday immediately following Easter Sunday as a holiday. Easter Monday, as it is called, provides Christians with the opportunity to relish and reflect on the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection at greater length the morning after Easter. Easter Monday is the second day of the Easter Octave (eight days) as well as Eastertide (fifty days). Easter Monday is important given that so many special days in the church calendar took place in quick succession, including Palm... Read more
In this post, I reflect upon the ancient creedal declaration that Jesus “descended into hell.” I connect it to the early Catholic teaching of “limbo” and apply it to my adult son’s ongoing ordeal with TBI. I also consider its import for other people’s extreme suffering. Today is Holy Saturday, which falls between Good Friday that recounts Jesus’ death on a cross and Easter Sunday that celebrates Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Many people ask: where did Jesus go after... Read more
This post reflects upon the significance of Maundy Thursday for the whole of the week throughout the church year. Maundy Thursday signifies that there can be no such thing as “Sunday Christians.” Sunday Christians are those who supposedly only live as Christians when they go to church on Sundays. But church is more than a place to go and attend. It is a daily way of being in the world. Every day is a day for obedience to Christ, a... Read more
There is a sense in which Palm Sunday is Calm Sunday. Here I am referring to Jesus’ person. He remains calm amid the highs and lows of that day. Jesus remains calm before the storm that is coming. This post reflects upon Jesus’ calmness of spirit amid the turbulent activity, and how we might follow in his footsteps and be in sync with his heartbeat amid the storms of life. There is a sense of equilibrium, even as the people... Read more
Bingo is a game of chance. How about life? This post is about how the game of life requires conscious control and the utmost care. One cannot leave one’s interactions with others to chance. I will not wade too deep into the murky waters of fate and freedom. What I will say is that I invest a great deal of thought looking for signs of conscious control in my son Christopher’s life. Unlike bingo, I won’t leave anything to chance... Read more
In the medical field, it is impossible to prescribe proper treatment and provide an astute prognosis without a sound diagnosis of a patient’s condition. That is why I always pray that medical professionals tending to my son’s traumatic brain injury and resulting aftermath discern what the causes are for his various ailments. Sound diagnosis of a medical problem makes astute prognosis possible. The same is true in the spiritual domain. Lenten lament aims to help us discern what is wrong... Read more
One of the most pressing challenges facing society at large is the temptation to reduce all relationships to transactions whereby we commodify life. It gives rise to a throwaway culture. God calls us to resist this trend. May we cherish life and our relationships in view of how God restores humanity as the divine masterpiece in view of Jesus. Pope Francis addressed this subject back in 2014. He claimed that we live in a “throwaway culture.” Whereas for Pope Francis,... Read more
We learn a great deal about ourselves from our metaphorical accounts of deities and devils. Do these accounts prove life-giving or deadly for others and ourselves? Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the great critics of religion, along with Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Ludwig Feuerbach. Nietzsche wrote about truth as a dead metaphor. In “On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense,” Nietzsche asserts: “Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are.”[1] Nietzsche argued... Read more
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