There’s a popular notion which suggests that it can be helpful to compare every century of Christianity’s existence to one year of life. That would make Christianity 21 years old, a young 21, grown-up enough to exhibit a basic maturity but still far from a finished product. How insightful is this notion?

John of the Cross teaches that within spirituality and morality there are no exempt areas. Simply put, you cannot be a saint or a highly moral person if you allow yourself a moral exemption or two.

“I go on ahead to prepare a place for you!” Jesus speaks those words to His disciples on the eve of His death as He sits at table with them and senses their sadness as they grapple with His dying, His going away.

When Friedrich Nietzsche declared that “God is dead” he added a question: What kind of a “sponge” does it take to wipe away the entire horizon?

My first love was literature, novels and poetry. As a child, I loved story books, mysteries and adventures. In grade school, I was made to memorize poetry and loved the exercise. High School introduced me to more serious literature: Shakespeare, Kipling, Keats, Wordsworth, Browning. On the side, I still read story books, cowboy tales from the old West taken from my dad’s bookshelf.

Classically, both in the world and in our churches, we have seen despair as the ultimate, unforgivable sin.

Dorothy Day is alleged to have said: “Don’t call me a saint; I don’t want to be dismissed that easily!”

With the exception of scripture and a few Christian mystics, Christian spirituality, up to now, has been weak in presenting us with a vision for our retirement years.

The heart has its reasons, says philosopher Blaise Pascal, and sometimes those reasons have a long history.

The 17th-century theologian and scientist Blaise Pascal once wrote: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.”