Rejoice Always?

Paul tells us to “rejoice always” (1 Thess. 5:16). On the face of it, that sounds too hard to be realistic. When I’ve been putting in long hours at work, and when I get home I have fifty papers to grade, a lecture to prepare, and oh by the way I have to do laundry or I won’t have any clean clothes tomorrow… am I really supposed to rejoice?   Some aspects of the Christian faith are things I...

Wrestling with Contemplative Prayer

Contemplative prayer. The name makes it sound restful. The description makes it sound easy enough. Settling down in silence, just focusing on God. Repeating a phrase, like “Lord, have mercy” or the name of Jesus, to keep one’s attention on Him. It might sound a bit boring, but it doesn’t sound hard. Certainly it doesn’t sound hard enough to merit an athletic metaphor, right?...

Hail Mary… or Not?

  When I started learning about the rosary, I was both interested and wary. Interested, because I’d been discovering that repeated short prayers like the Jesus prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”) really did help me to open my heart to God’s presence in a way that was different from other ways of praying. Wary, because the prayer that is most repeated in...

Meditation on Psalm 4

Psalm 4 is one of the Psalms traditionally included in the Anglican service of Compline, the last office of the day. In just eight verses, it touches on much of the Christian life. ...

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent; along with Good Friday, it’s one of the days in the church calendar that is traditionally a day of fasting. Why fast?   There are a lot of reasons, but I know that today one of them has become clearer to me. Fasting shows me how weak I am....