I’ve spent a fair amount of time this week looking at paintings of the Ascension. There are lots of them—by Renaissance masters like Giotto and Rembrandt and Titian—and also by early iconographers and manuscript illuminators. And then in the 20th century, there’s the evocative rendition by Salvador Dali. I hope you have seen it, or will at least … Read the rest
Continue reading "Hands in Blessing?" »
Easter 4B
How do any of us ever get up and walk? “Through our own power or piety?” Peter asked rhetorically of people who had just witnessed a healing at the Jerusalem temple. Of course not. The lame man walked because of God’s grace alone. That was their lesson. But have we learned it for ourselves? Likely we didn’t get … Read the rest
Continue reading "After the First Step" »
How do any of us ever get up and walk? “Through our own power or piety?” Peter asked rhetorically of people who had just witnessed a healing at the Jerusalem temple. The lame man walked only because of God’s grace. Likely we didn’t get onto our feet through our own power or piety either, but how would we … Read the rest
Continue reading "Beyond the First Step" »
“He had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” I remember the first time I read that phrase, and it came to me with a shock of recognition. For Jesus had indeed been made known to me in the breaking of the bread. My adult priesthood has been intimately shaped by my youthful Christian … Read the rest
Continue reading "The Way to the Bread/El Camino hacia el Pan" »
Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2007 bestselling memoir, Eat Pray Love, is a kind of spiritual travelogue. If you read it or watched the movie, you may recall that she recovers from a messy divorce by traveling to Italy to eat, then to India to pray, and finally to Bali to fall in love. It’s a kind of chick-lit classic, … Read the rest
