3 Books in 3 Years: Reclaiming Vatican II

April 10, 2012

Between 2012 and 2015, Catholic worldwide will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. (For a quick catch-up on Vatican II read Critical Mass by Karen Sue Smith (Sojourners magazine, Jan. 2012).
In a recent review in UK-based The Tablet, history professor Hilmar Pabel puts a challenge to all Catholics to read three [...]

Read the full article →

Easter Monday: ‘Back From the City’

April 9, 2012

Back from the City
by JANE KENYON (1986)
After three days and nights of rich food
and late talk in overheated rooms,
of walks between mounds of garbage
and human forms bedded down for the night
under rags, I come back to my dooryard,
to my own wooden step.
The last red leaves fall to the ground
and frost has blackened the herbs and [...]

Read the full article →

Easter: ‘Noli me Tangere’

April 8, 2012

“Noli me Tangere” (Don’t Cling To Me)
Mary Magdalene and Resurrected Jesus
(In the Sacristy of the chapel of San Nicolò in Florence, Italy, Fresco attributed to Mariotto di Nardo)

Read the full article →

Easter: ‘He Is Not Here’

April 8, 2012

Grace Carol Bomer’s work seeks to evoke both image and impression, the tangible world and the spiritual world. Her work has been called “a silent form of poetry.” She views her work as “a form of play rejoicing before the face of God” (Rookmaaker). This is reflected in the name of her studio in Asheville, North Carolina, [...]

Read the full article →

Holy Week: ‘Via Negativa’

April 7, 2012

Via Negativa
by R. S. THOMAS
Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put [...]

Read the full article →

Good Friday: ‘Were You There?’

April 6, 2012

Gospel musician Marion Williams sings “Were You There?”

Harsh and powerful, avant garde artist Diamanda Galas‘ 1992 release of “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”

Read the full article →

Holy Week: ‘At Calvary Near the Ancre’

April 5, 2012

At a Calvary Near the Ancre (For Good Friday)
by WILFRED OWEN (1917)
One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.
Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle [...]

Read the full article →

Van Jones: The Problem of Confusing ‘The Movement’ With ‘The State’

April 4, 2012

Van Jones is cofounder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Green for All and a former adviser to President Obama on “green economy.” His new book, Rebuild the Dream, examines what the movement for social transformation needs to learn from the Obama campaign and his presidency.
Jones lays out the [...]

Read the full article →

Feast of St. Benedict the African

April 4, 2012

Benedict the Moro, also known as Benedict the Black or Benedict the African, was born near Messina, Italy in 1526. He was the son of Christopher and Diana Manasseri, Africans who were taken to Italy as slaves and later became Christians. Benedict worked as a field hand until he reached the age of 18, when he [...]

Read the full article →

Douglas Kmiec on Birth Control, Bishops, Religious Liberty, and ‘Obamacare’

April 3, 2012

All this hoopla from the Catholic Bishops Conference on birth control, and from the Vatican on religious liberty, and from everybody on “Obamacare” can leave one wanting to ignore the papers, radio, and TV and just bury one’s head in the sand. But, in the end, all that really gets you is a sandy head [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →