The reading from the Acts of the Apostles (2:1-11) begins: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” Of course the reference there is to the Old Testament feast of Pentecost, which commemorated the giving of the Law on Mt Sinai. But now the Christian day of Pentecost has [...]
Way back toward the beginning of human history, not long after the death of Methuselah, God took a kind of assessment of man. He saw that the wickedness of man on earth was great, and that man’s heart was continually occupied with evil (Gen. 6:5). He was grieved at this and regretted creating man in [...]
We must go still further. Our communion with God cannot be limited to set times of meditation and prayer. How can we truly live and love if our relationship with the Source of Life and Love is only on a part-time basis? Now we obviously cannot be explicitly praying 24 hours a day, but there [...]
[This is an article I wrote seven or eight years ago. It seems to me to have a somewhat “new-agey” feel to it. I must have been going through a phase. So if it gives you the creeps, just skip it. I publish it here anyway because I think there still might be something worthwhile [...]
We have entered now into a time of waiting, a relatively short time, but one that is meant to be filled with fervent prayer. This time in the liturgical year corresponds to the time that the Lord told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit, who would clothe them [...]
The feast of the Ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is a kind of a link between Pascha and Pentecost, the Resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The liturgical texts for the feast of “Mid-Pentecost” make the same claim for that feast, but that is just a bit of [...]
The issue of the way we talk about God should not come down to trying to divide God up into male and female Persons, or making God wholly male or female. Aside from what we have said about the Father and the Son and the mystery of the Incarnation, there is a deeper underlying reason [...]
In meditations on the Mother of God, I have thought about the mystery of the feminine in our spiritual life, in our understanding of and relationship with God. This could be a huge and explosive topic, and much rhetoric and raging have been going on concerning “gender issues,” both human and divine. I guess I’m [...]
Suzy over at Sailing by Starlight has put together a book of spiritual reflections and poetry by various Christian writers as a fundraiser for two different orphanages. I’ve contributed a piece to the book to help with the effort—and I’m going to buy a copy, too, to help the orphans. From the preview I’ve seen, [...]
One of our neighbors recently brought us something she picked up at a garage sale: an issue of Life magazine from 1946. (What she paid at the garage sale was more than its original retail price of 10 cents.) I found it quite fascinating, not only because of its archeological interest, but also of the [...]
