Blog of the Archdiocese of Washington
Here in the Western world, we live in a culture that tends to treat anger as taboo. A common tactic to unsettle an opponent today is to accuse him or her of being angry. It is amazing how easily humiliated and/or defensive an adversary can become in response to such an accusation. Yes, it is …
Continue reading “The Passion of Anger and the “Miserable Truce” of the Modern Age”
One of the more perplexing claims of the growing number of agnostics and atheists among us is that there is no evidence of an intelligent creator of the universe. But clearly the created universe manifests intelligibility and order from the farthest reaches of outer space down to our tiny planet and further down into the …
Continue reading “Of Mice and Men – Pondering the Strange Loss of Faith in an Age of Science”
Let’s conclude our consideration of certain texts from the Passion Narratives with one that describes the aftermath of Jesus’ death. The Gospel of Matthew recounts four immediate results of Jesus’ death, and while they describe historical events, they also signal deeper spiritual truths. And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he …
Continue reading “Four Immediate Results of Jesus’ Death on the Cross”
In the Gospel we read on Palm Sunday, Jesus says a rather extraordinary thing as He is on His way to the cross. He addresses it to the women who have gathered to lament Him: Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are …
In my work as a spiritual director and in deliverance ministry as well as in my own experience of personal growth, it has become very clear to me that there are common patterns of distorted thinking that disrupt spiritual growth and cause distress and disorder. These cognitive distortions lead one to misinterpret or overanalyze the …
In a recent post (Is There a Way Back to Undeniable Reality and Universally Binding Norms?) I discussed how we today tend to “live in our heads” a lot more so than did the people living in biblical times and even those who lived up to and including the High Middle Ages and the Scholastic …
In yesterday’s post I discussed the overall disconnect from reality effected by nominalism and its successor movements (e.g., Cartesian, Kantian, nihilist). Increasingly we live in our heads and no longer view reality itself as a reliable indicator of what is; we claim a kind of right to determine our own individual notion of reality. This …
Continue reading “Still There! A Meditation on the Universal Inclination to “the Good””
Today’s Gospel is about a man who had two sons, both of whom forsook him and refused to relive in relationship with him. Although the sons seem to have very different personalities (one outwardly rebellious, the other outwardly obedient) they actually have similar internal struggles. In effect, neither one of them really wants a relationship …
Continue reading “There Was a Man Who Had Two Sons – A Homily for the 4th Sunday of Lent”