This morning I sat with two lots of readings. Early prayer was with John 15, verses 7 – 11, the beautiful love commandment in which Jesus uses the word “love” nine times to emphasize its importance, finishing with, “I am giving you these commands so you will love one another.” Then at breakfast, I opened Read more
Terrorists may be surprised at the loving, Christian message the General Bishop of the UK’s Coptic Orthodox Church has posted for them. Bishop Angaelos says he grieves for those who have died and for those who mourn them. He also grieves for the young men who see it as “not only justifiable, but glorious, to Read more
Terry and I were in a rental car in Jordan. We’d driven from Amman to the site where Moses stood to view the Promised Land. Narrow roads wound through wilderness with occasional habitation: some Bedouin tents, boys with a few sheep or goats walking behind them, a small town with a roadside stall where aromatic Read more
Basically, most people’s wedding vows have the same gist, right? “I’ll love you forever” say Bella Ellwood-Clayton “I wonder, knowing what we do now, 10 years later, what new set of vows would we make?” she asks. Here are the first of 17 things she would say now: 1. I will forgive you, endlessly. Partnerships of Read more
“Unrealistic lust is a great place to kick off” a relationship. That’s the counsel the advice columnist for the liberal English newspaper The Guardian gives to a woman who doesn’t know whether to move in with a boyfriend who won’t even say that he loves her. Save “duty sex” for later, Mariella Frostrup continues. “The Read more
Amid the controversy surrounding Pope Francis’s recent apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), one extraordinary section has been all but overlooked. In chapter 4, “Love in Marriage,” the Holy Father offers a moving exegesis of that popular wedding reading, St. Paul’s ode to love from 2 Corinthians. It’s about more than marriage, though; Read more
Growing up in an evangelical Protestant family, I didn’t hear much about the Christian mystics. My religious background tended to equate mysticism with occult practices, overlooking the mystics’ real emphasis: a direct experience of God. Yet, I sensed that the divine was a constant, companionable presence, someone who was simultaneously both within and all around Read more
Mercy is a God-word, liquid in that it seems to take the shape of any container open to it. Poured without a container it can soak in a random way, refreshing dryness and encouraging new growth, regardless of the boundaries of belief systems. As Scripture says, it falls like the rain on all. Little wonder Read more
In “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” the soaring and chilling speech he delivered the day before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. ponders the thought of life in other places and times. Among other eras in history, he considers the prime of classical Athens, when he could have enjoyed the company of luminaries “around the Read more
The heads of four Franciscan communities have announced plans to establish a Pontifical Franciscan University in Rome by 2018. This was announced by the Ministers General of the First Order in a letter dated November 29. “As an expression of the academic unity of the Franciscan family, this project will be committed to an emphasis Read more