A Benediction for Election Day

May you remember that all politics and all platforms and all legalities and all borders and all leaders are temporary. May you recall that political movements and boundaries and personalities and programs are here one day and gone the next. All of these are passing away. May you...
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Some simple but urgent guidance to get us through these next months

I awoke on Saturday, September 19, with three sources in my mind for guidance: Etty Hillesum (1914 – 1943), the young Jewish woman who suffered much more injustice in the concentration camp than we are suffering now; Psalm 62, which must have been written in a time of a major...
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Dawn and the new creation

The first chirps of the waking birds mark the “point vierge” [the virgin point] of the dawn under a sky as yet without real light, a moment of awe and inexpressible innocence, when the Father in perfect silence opens their eyes. They begin to speak to him, not with fluent song,...
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Mystical Hope

Hope is the main impulse of life. —Ilia Delio, OSF Because we are so quickly led to despair, most of us cannot endure suffering for long without some sliver of hope or meaning. However, it is worth asking ourselves about where our hope lies. My friend and colleague Cynthia...
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Teresa’s Bookmark

One of Teresa of Avila’s most famous teachings is a poem known as “Teresa’s Bookmark” that was found in her own prayer book after her death: Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing upset you. Everything changes. God alone is unchanging. With patience all things are possible. Whoever...
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