Suffering Poorly

I am glad you feel you are ‘standing still’ in your spiritual life. I should be still better pleased if you felt you were losing ground! Whatever makes for humility is so much to the good.”

Frames of Mind

My attention span is waning. I’ve noted it for the past couple of years: no longer can I sit for hours with a single book before me—barely recognizable is my teenage self who marathoned through Harry Potter volumes the day they arrived at my door—and the convenient packaging of 25 minute episodes of my favorite TV-shows has so shaped me that even sitting through a two hour long movie is at times difficult. I’ve no doubt as to the cause of my attention shortage, though. The recurring itch to check phone, e-mail, and social media as I attempt to work through any text of depth or any movie of richness reminds me again and again that my ability to focus was exchanged over time for the instant gratifications of the alerts and messages my electronic devices have brought me. Continue Reading »

Catholic Census

I never got closer than a football field to Pope Francis when he visited Washington D.C., but it was enough to be around all the people who had also come out to be as close as we could to the pope. My friend from church spotted me and ran over to pray together, I exchanged names with a pair of . . . . Continue Reading »

Postures of Prayer

How ought we to pray? Kneeling, standing, sitting, prostrate? Should we pray out loud, in song, or silently? The most specific instructions we receive in Scripture pertain to the content of our prayers, not to the outward delivery of those prayers. In Matthew 6, when Jesus instructs the disciples . . . . Continue Reading »