Pope Francis, 1 February 2025 – And for us too, the experience of faith has been stimulated by encounters with people who have been able to change in life and have, so to speak, entered into God's dreams. For even though there is much evil in the world, we can distinguish who is different: their greatness, which often coincides with littleness, wins us over. … Dear brothers and sisters, from Mary Magdalene, whom tradition calls “the apostle of the apostles”, we learn hope. One enters the new world by converting more than once. Our journey is a constant invitation to change perspective. … Instead of looking into the darkness of the past, into the emptiness of a tomb, from Mary Magdalene we learn to turn towards life. There our Master awaits us. There our name is spoken. For in real life there is a place for us, always and everywhere.  Read More

Dan Fogelberg, “Leader of the Band” (1981): “His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (1945): “You cannot love a fellow creature fully till you love God.”  Read More

Jane Hirschfield, born in New York City (1953). “I don't think poetry is based just on poetry; it is based on a thoroughly lived life. And so, I couldn't just decide I was going to write no matter what; I first had to find out what it means to live.” Steve Jobs once said, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”  Read More

The Gospel chosen in the Catholic liturgical calendar for the first Sunday of Lent this year is this one from Luke, quoting here its opening lines. We should remember that “to tempt” has two meanings.  Read More

Last weekend, I was engaged with a men’s Retreat – 112 of us from Vancouver-Portland and environs.  Read More

In Matthew’s Gospel there are no Angels associated with Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, but only an Angel who came to Joseph at Jesus’ conception, or soon after that. Matthew offers us not a “heavenly host” in the sky over Bethlehem and the Stable, but instead he speaks of Wise Men coming from the East, who can see better in the dark that which finally mattered most to them to find. I think of the dramatic opening line of Theodore Roethke’s poem: “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”  Read More

Jim Harrison, poet, novelist (b. 1937): “Life is sentimental. Why should I be cold and hard about it? That's the main content. The biggest thing in people's lives is their loves and dreams and visions, you know.”  Read More

St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness (1533-1578)1 , Engravings by Cort van Hoorn Cornelis (1533-1578)2 and Girolamo Muziano (1532 – died Rome, 27 April 1592).3 In Matthew 10, the evangelist lets us remember with him that day, or was it over the course of a few weeks, when Jesus finally decided who from out of “the crowds” were to be His closest colleagues – the Twelve.Matthew 10 (NJB): 2 These a...  Read More

In the post-Classical, or the Ecclesiastical Latin, period of the Latin language, the noun annunciatio (late 4th century CE, in the Vulgate translation of the Bible by St. Jerome) meant “a preaching of the Gospel”, a moment or instance of this having been done. It was only in the 7th century that this same noun came to mean the most consequential proclamation of the Gospel in all of human history:  Read More

The accomplishment of our national Election last week compelled me to think deeper about what had happened. We eventually learn that rarely do we understand something consequential happening while it is happening. It is only afterwards that we may begin to understand – Then they said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?’ - if we have trained ourselves in the discipline of recollection.  Read More

Yesterday, Saturday afternoon, I went with three friends to a performance by the Oregon Repertory Singers. One of our four is a Tenor in that group. After the concert, we four went to an Italian dinner, where we talked about what we had heard and felt, which interestingly (and I think significantly) ended up becoming a conversation about the nature of Heaven. For some reason, as I looked out from my seat toward Tom the Tenor standing at the center of the top row, I remembered a poignant poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) called “Sympathy”, whose last stanza reads: I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,— When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— I know why the caged bird sings  Read More

I have never understood why the season of Autumn has had a particular power to access me. I don’t mean that I merely like Autumn; I mean that in some way I belong to Autumn. If there is any poetry in my soul it is most accessible to me in Autumn. Do you have a season that affects you in a similar way? Do you know why it does?  Read More