Hands Before you were born I tried to imagine your hands– Wee fingers wrapped around mine. Tried to imagine your face. But what mind Could contain the wholeness of your person? Ancient kingdoms, foreign lands Were easier to fathom. Who could...
Every year I feel guilty about how my fervor slacks during Easter Week. After the frenetic week of preparation and emotional intensity and the liturgical marathon of the Triduum and the social whirlwind of Easter itself, I deflate. I want to...
(I didn’t post this last week, but it was written last Wednesday.) It’s hard to believe, looking back at my blog archives, that on March 9 my biggest concern was getting to Mass after the time change. How everything has changed. I’m...
Share I’ve had my share of sorrows. I’ve had my share of joys. Sorrows that swirl like starlings darkening the blue like a noisy cloud. They swoop and overtake a tree, filling its branches with their crying. Then rise together and depart over the...
Tonight we watched two strange Holy Thursday Masses. The Pope’s Mass in an empty St Peter’s basilica played on my laptop while I made dinner, the computer resting next to my tray of hot cross buns. There was no washing of feet. No...
Bishop Christopher Coyne writes: At times I have wondered why even after his resurrection Christ still bore the wounds of the Cross. His is a resurrected and glorified body, one no longer bound to this physical realm. Could not then, the perfection...
Thinking about why my younger self was obsessed with Fight Club and American Beauty. Both films are a true picture of life in a fallen world where people do not know God but recognize that there is something profoundly wrong with the world. They are...
Sir Patrick Stewart has embarked on a spontaneous project to read through Shakespeare’s sonnets— so far one of my favorite instances of the outflowing of creativity that is whiling away the time in this season of plague/quarantine/social distancing...
Spread ‘You spread your table before me…’ As the sun spreads its warmth on the sleeping land— As the crocus spreads her petals— As the maples unfurl their leaves— As the white pine flings its yellow pollen. . . As the bees forage far and wide...
