An Audio Candle in the Darkness
O Lover, These winter days both cry out for, and repeatedly fail to provide adequate expressions of, lamentation. The leadened darkness leaves my spirit torn, my agency on the edge of paralysis: on the...
Prayers in Winter Blog
On Being Drawn Beyond the Egoic
[Cynthia Bourgeault, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2024.] O Lover, In the above work the Benedictine Bourgeault, drawing on the the work of the Trappist Keating in...
Musings on Mortality
[“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—A time to give birth and a time to die. . . .” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,2)] O Lover, I...
Prayer as Desire
[“As the deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants after You, O God. . . .my entire being longs for You; my body pines for You. . . .” (Ps 42:1 &...
Requiem “for the God . . . [Who] No Longer Exists”
[John Welch, OCarm, When Gods Die: An Introduction to John of the Cross. NY: Paulist Press, 1990.] [In 1991 Thomas Keating, OCSO, sixty-eight and on the threshold of what Juan de la Cruz called...
The Christ as Recapitulation
[Cynthia Bourgeault, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2024.] O Lover, In her splendid tracing of the last years of the spiritual journey of Thomas Keating, OCSO (1923-2018),...
Epiphany as Universal
O Lover, Sunday last was the the Feast of the Epiphany, the final day of Christmastide. The liturgical meaning of epiphany is rich indeed: disclosure, revelation, manifestation, showcasing. Praise be to You: initiator, agent,...
Mary on Getting to “Yes”
O Lover, For us of the Jesus tradition both courage and wisdom are required as we approach the cultural phenomenon called “Christmas.” Why? More than any other, this feast is an amalgam of accretions...
O How Shall I Receive You?
O Lover, We humans are denizens of the cosmos, embodieds whose sole venue is where form, sense, and thought are operative. It is in this life, this finite setting, in which we find ourselves....
The Migrant and the Song
[“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept . . . How can we sing the Lord’s song in an alien land?” (Ps 137:4)] [“Today there are once more saints and...