On faith, prayer, and the quiet journey of the spiritual life.
The scene John paints for us in today's gospel is one of patient suffering and surprising grace. The Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem was surrounded by five porticos sheltering a crowd of people in various states of misery — the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. Among them lay a man who had been ill ...
Read reflectionThere is a particular kind of courage that the world does not often celebrate — the courage to believe before you have any proof that belief is warranted. It is not the courage of the soldier who charges forward beca...
Read more →There is a man sitting by the road. He has sat there every day of his life, in the same darkness, holding out the same hands. He does not know what a sunrise looks like, or the face of his mother, or the color of wat...
Read more →There is something deeply uncomfortable about the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Not because the story is hard to understand — it is, in fact, one of Jesus's most transparent parables — but because if ...
Read more →There is a particular kind of courage in asking a sincere question in the middle of a debate. While the scribes and Pharisees were pressing Jesus with traps and trick questions, one scribe stepped forward with someth...
Read more →