Spirituality

By:
On:
In: Spirituality
We have come through the drama. The Advent waiting, the Christmas celebration, the Lenten fasting, the Holy Week intensity, the Easter explosion of Alleluia, and Pentecost’s fire. The liturgical calendar has given us months of high-intensity spiritual experiences — preparation,…

By:
On:
In: Spirituality
Prophets don’t speak their own opinions, preferences, or agendas. They speak God’s Word. This means listening to God must come before speaking for God. Consider Elijah, the great Carmelite prophet. After his dramatic confrontation with the prophets of Baal, he…

By:
On:
In: Spirituality
We have just celebrated Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, the moment everything changed. Picture the scene: The apostles are huddled in the Upper Room, scared, hiding, confused. Their leader is dead. Their dreams are shattered. They don’t know what…

By:
On:
In: Spirituality
Thérèse of Lisieux entered the Carmelite convent at fifteen, expecting to do great things for God. She imagined herself as a missionary, a martyr, a spiritual warrior. Instead, she spent nine years in a cloistered community doing laundry, washing dishes,…

By:
On:
In: Spirituality
Can John of the Cross, the poet who wrote about “the dark night”, possibly have anything to say to people celebrating resurrection and new life? Easter shouts triumph, light, joy, victory over death. John whispers darkness, emptiness, unknowing, the via…

By:
On:
In: Spirituality
During Lent, we silence the Alleluia. For forty days, the word disappears from our liturgy. Then Easter explodes with it: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! We sing it over and over because death is defeated, because Christ is risen, because resurrection changes…

By:
On:
In: Spirituality
There are those who, when they hear St Teresa’s name, picture a stern Spanish mystic, a reformer who established seventeen convents through sheer willpower, a woman of intense prayer and rigid discipline. They imagine someone perpetually serious, perpetually holy, perpetually…