April 30, 2020
No Dream Is Perfect
No dream is perfect, no way the only way, no direction irreversible by God, whose way is the way of reversal, as Mary’s son soon will make clear when he leaves her and Joseph in the lurch at the age of twelve and does not accompany them home to Nazareth from Jerusalem. So Mary makes her way back to Jerusalem, where she and Joseph search anxiously among the crowds there for Passover, looking for their lost son. However, as they soon discover, he is not lost. He has, at twelve years of age, found himself. They find him in the temple teaching.
Holiness Is Living in God’s Grace
One misconception about the mystics is that they are singularly holy people, set apart from us ordinary Christians by their holiness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mystics are singular and different because of their mystical experiences, their visions, ...
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Saint Isidore: Good Work Is Like a Prayer
It is in work that we find the test of our relationship to the creation because work is the question of how we will use the creation. For Wendell Berry, work done well brings us into a wholeness and cooperation ...
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Holding onto the Resurrection
None of us humans, not even Mary, can hold onto glory. The ordinary passages through life and death continue as they did for Mary after meeting her son as the Risen Lord following the Resurrection. The mystic, however, has indeed ...
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Praying with Mary
As with every true prayer, the Magnificat does just that: it magnifies the Lord, focuses on the Almighty, who does great things among us, the One whose name is holy. We begin to change when our own plans scatter us, bring ...
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Truth Is Lived through Charity
If the mystic is one who experiences in an extraordinary way the intimacy with God offered to everyone, then Mary is the model and pattern of the mystical life. She literally carried God in her womb and gave birth to ...
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