Category: Thankfulness
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The Way of Shame and the Way of Thanksgiving
The language of “self-emptying” can have a sort of Buddhist ring. It sounds as we are referencing a move towards becoming a vessel without content – the non-self. Given our multicultural world, such a reference is understandable. It is, however, unfortunate and requires that we visit the true nature of Christian self-emptying. Our self-emptying is…
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The Sacrament of Humility – Part Two
In my earlier article, I described humility as “our willingness to receive with thanksgiving those things (of whatever size) that come our way.” This describes humility as a virtue, but the article’s title described it as a “sacrament.” Oddly, I seemed not to have unpacked what that means. There are several ways to think about…
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The Sacrament of Humility – Part One
Some things are so obvious that you cannot see them. Their powers of invisibility do not lie so much within themselves as within those who cannot see them. We are hard-wired for danger, our eyes attuned to threats. We overlook the power of weakness and the vulnerability of humility – the queen and fount of…
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What To Do When God Is Everywhere
If there is no such thing as “secularism” (see my previous article), then how are we to live? If God is “everywhere present and filling all things,” how are we to spend our time in the day? It is possible to be distracted by such questions, to wonder whether Christians need to construct an alternative…
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Things You Can’t Invent
Most of the things in our lives are not of our own making – they were given to us. Our language, our culture, the whole of our biology and the very gift of life itself is something that has been “handed down” to us. In that sense, we are all creatures of “tradition” (traditio=“to hand…
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The Work That Saves
Do we cooperate in our salvation? Do our efforts make a difference? These questions lie at the heart of a centuries-old religious debate in Christianity. Classically, the Protestant reformers said, “No,” to these questions, arguing that we are saved solely and utterly by God’s grace, His unmerited favor. The Catholic Church replied that “faith without…
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Moving Mountains
I live in a beautiful part of the country – the Tennessee Valley. On one side of the valley are the Smokey Mountains, part of the Appalachian chain. On the other side of the valley are the Cumberland Mountains, ancient relics of a once great sea. The Cumberlands, true to their geological origin, were great…
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A Day Off Versus The Day Of
In medieval England, just prior to the Reformation, there were between 40 and 50 days of the calendar (apart from Sundays) that were feasts of the Church on which little to no work was done. Historian, Eamon Duffy, describes this: As important as fast days were feast days, in particular the festa ferianda, on which…
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The Communion of Giving Thanks
Whom should I thank? The question is normally a matter of polite acknowledgement. A gift was given and received. Who gave it? Whom should I thank? It is inherently the nature of giving thanks that thanks must be given to someone. I cannot give thanks to nothing or no one. As such, the giving of…
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The Despair of Modernity – It Might Not Be All Bad
It is a commonplace in the Fathers to describe despair or sadness as the result of failing to get what we want. It sounds quite simple, but it cuts to the very heart of our sadness. There is a melancholy of our age that is born from the expectations of modernity. The mantra of progress…
Michael, I’m not sure we ever get these things right. We fail a lot, and we’re quite likely to fail.…