One Christmas when our children were young, John and I took them to the Adler Planetarium to see the show called, Mystery of the Christmas Star. As the auditorium went black, we tilted back in the tall chairs and traveled back in time getting a scientific explanation of the celestial event that prompted the Magi to travel to Bethlehem. As we sat there in the darkness I imagined what it would have been like for the magi to travel the 800 or so miles on their journey between their homeland and Jerusalem.
O Lord Most Longed For, to you, the mender of time and fulfiller of hopes, we lift the dreams and yearnings of our hearts. To you we offer the wisps of hopes we may not dare speak before others: We dream of being more than we now appear — stronger, wiser, truer, more accomplished. You alone know our [...]
Today is a day of new beginnings. On New Year’s Day we start a new cycle of time – 365 days in
which we will live out the seasons that God has built into our lives and the life of the world. St.
Benedict in his Rule for monasteries wrote, “Always we begin again.” This impulse is the heart of
what makes anticipation of the New Year kindle all of our longings for a richer way of being in the
world.
Merciful God, as the season of Advent begins we come into your presence to thank you that you came into the world to reconcile us to you, our neighbor and ourselves. We thank you too that Jesus, filled with love, profound wisdom and a total commitment to others showed us what you are like. Because [...]
I vividly recall the experience of waiting at Midway for a Southwest flight to I Denver some years ago. The plane was late, and all 125 of us were well aware of what awaited us over the next hour or so, and I’m sure, like me, everyone else wasn’t looking forward to it.
When I hear the name Albert Einstein I think of two things, his hair and his unequaled brilliance. The name Albert Einstein is synonymous with intelligence.
It has been a few years since I said my goodbyes to my children as they began their freshman year of college. With Annie, my daughter, it was quick and dirty.
