On July 20, 1969, the first man landed on the moon. One spring morning about the year A.D. 33 the first New Man landed on the earth. His spaceship was a tomb, and He left His pressurized linen suit inside and walked out into a garden.
The Prayer of One Very Ill: Good Friday in a Season of Pandemic
This prayer seems appropriate as we approach Good Friday in the midst of a pandemic. It was composed by Marguerite Teilhard de Chardin, a former President of the Catholic Union of the Sick, and sister of the well-known writer, Pierre.
COVID-19: The World Observes Lent
Personally, I am not in the habit of observing Lent in any formal way. I do not give up chocolate or coffee or anything else—at least, not intentionally. But willy-nilly I always end up surrendering something, because that is what Lent does: it drives us, as it did Jesus, into the wilderness.
Friends in High Places: The Communion of Saints
What follows is a chapter I originally wrote for my book Practicing the Presence of People, but decided at the last minute to drop. Perhaps I felt, at that point in my life, that it was too personal to publish. But now here it is.
No Man Is an Island: An Encounter with a Satanist
Many years ago the Lord revealed to me my besetting sin, and He did so through, of all people, a satanist.
Great Love: Steve Bell’s Pilgrim Year Series
For many years Steve Bell has been in the top rank of Christian singer-songwriters. Now, later in life, he is showing himself also to be a gifted writer of devotional prose.
It’s You I Like: The Gospel According to Mister Rogers
One day when Fred Rogers was a boy, his grandfather said to him, “You made this day a special day, just by being yourself. Always remember there’s just one person in this whole world like you—and I like you just the way you are.”
Clearing the Desk: A New Year’s Gallimaufry
The first thing I do at the start of a new year is to clear off my desk—not just to find places for all the physical odds and ends that have accumulated, but to organize my ideas, sorting through the various notebooks and scraps of paper where I’ve jotted down thoughts that came to me on the fly.
The Star: An Epiphany Story
Far in the future, a spaceship from Earth approaches a white dwarf star surrounded by clouds of gas from the time it went supernova. On board the ship are scientists, including a Jesuit astrophysicist, sent to investigate the reasons behind the supernova explosion.
Fra Giovanni’s Christmas Letter
On Christmas Eve, 1513, Fra Giovanni Giocondo, a Franciscan friar, wrote the following beautiful letter—what we’d now consider a Christmas card—to his friend and patron Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi: