Weekly Word

It was not what I expected to have happen at a White House Conference in Washington, D.C. on the relationship of the faith community to race relations in the United States.

Christmas is a strange season. When you’re a child, it is a season of presents. When you’re young, it’s a season of parties. When you get your own home, it’s a season of preparations.

It was our second day in Erie, Pennsylvania. I was about ten years old. “Momma,” I said, “This is the place where I want to live.” My mother smiled a little.

Advent is one of the most difficult periods of the church’s liturgical cycle and all of the life questions the scriptures bring. Why? Because Advent is all about waiting.

The signal is clear: There is no time to sink into the quiet of fall that is promised with the coming of Thanksgiving.

Gratitude is not only the posture of praise but it is also the basic element of real belief in God.

Cassian wrote that Abba John, the leader of a great monastery, went to Abba Paesius who had been living for forty years very far off

In the East, at least, November is a sear month, beautiful for its bleakness.

Identity is a moveable feast. It is not a fixed concept.

The contemplative sees everywhere the One from whose life all life comes.

The sole writing teacher I ever had taught only five things.

There are moments in life—both spiritual and intellectual—that are like no other. They change us. They redirect us. They complete us.

It wasn’t any kind of special moment when it happened. It wasn’t my birthday, for instance, or an anniversary of anything.

After a woman makes perpetual profession of her monastic vows of obedience, stability, and metanoia, she lights her profession

Every afternoon, as I sit in my upstairs office, I hear the old monastery bells begin to ring in the once Benedictine church that then