Christmas Octave
The Christmas season extends beyond December 25. The Church celebrates the octave of Christmas, eight days, although the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” has a longer time span. This week to still celebrate the astounding event of God becoming a human being to rescue us from sin and death, here is a prayer that […]
Making Suffering Meaningful
Who hasn’t suffered? Suffering may stab us periodically, like a toothache or a friend’s betrayal. Or we may be awash in it constantly, as when we have a chronic illness. The mystery of suffering has always tormented us—in particular, why do the innocent suffer? Why is there such devastating misery in Ukraine? No answer satisfies. […]
The Cross: A Sign of Love
When my niece Lisa was baptized, I gave her a cross necklace. It was a lovely cloisonné cross with a pink rose in the center, but it was still a cross. How curious that an instrument of execution is now a worn as jewelry! (Can you imagine wearing a guillotine or an electric chair?) Moreover, […]
Perseverance Pays Off for Us and Jesus
Recently a video on Facebook showed a little girl about six-years-old trying to jump onto a green stool almost her height. She falls to the floor over and over again, but never stops trying. Finally her dad stands behind her, holds her shoulders, and says something to her we can’t hear. I thought he was […]
Lent: Meaningful Suffering
Every year during Lent we recall that God as man was beaten, whipped, mocked, crowned with thorns, and nailed to a cross. Only the gift of faith enables us to believe the incredible: that the all-powerful God actually endured agony, suffered, and died for us. By his suffering, Jesus gave meaning to all of our […]
Holy Boldness in the Face of Crosses
In my backyard there is a sapling that was planted directly under a chain-link fence probably by a squirrel. As it grew, the tree not only wove itself around the bars but swallowed them into itself. Nothing could inhibit the life force that impelled the tree upwards. You can see it in the photo. This […]
