As a lead in the OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, formerly known as RCIA – Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), I often find the initial discussions about God challenging. How do we convey the essence of an infinite being...
Once there was a woman—let’s call her Mabel—who decided to walk the famous Camino, the pilgrimage route that ends at the tomb of the Apostle St. James, at the church of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Every year over 400,000 pilgrims make...
Grandson of a slave, born in Southern Georgia in 1923, Johnnie Baptis Bailey [JB, nee Brown] was adopted as a young boy by the Bailey family. He had no more than a 3rd grade education. Until the age of 19, JB worked as a farm hand for one Jack...
Faith is like a great cathedral with beautiful stained glass windows. Standing outside we cannot see or imagine the beauty of those windows, but standing inside every ray of sunlight reveals a harmony of multifaceted, unspeakable splendors...
In an Ignatian group exercise this month, I was asked to write a “letter of forgiveness.” “To whom?” I thought. I laughed at myself noting that there are indeed a long list of people that I need to write to. The exercise was a success in that it had...
If we were to compile a list of the greatest comedy and entertainment teams of the past century, almost everyone would agree that George Burns and his wife Gracie Allen would be on that list. They had many classic routines together, in which Gracie...
The word “liturgy” refers to the work of someone on behalf of the people. In our case, it refers to our collective effort to be sustained by the Source of life in all components of our being, especially our mind, heart, body and soul. This work...
In the early 1930s, there was a French pilot flying across the Sahara Desert in Africa who had to make an emergency landing, wrecking his plane in the process. He was quite fortunate in that a tribe of Bedouins, or desert dwellers, was near by. They...