Mary Marrocco: Learning how to turn betrayal upside down
How do we not become violent in an age of violence? How can we find another way when in our world, and even in our Church, violence seems to have made such terrible inroads?
Questioning Faith: Evidence points to leap of faith
Love your enemies, Jesus tells us. Apart from the direct command of God, it’s not obvious that loving enemies is a necessary or even desirable thing to do. They can and do hurt us, and hating them can motivate us in protecting ourselves.
Questioning Faith: What would it mean to truly love others?
Martyrdom is about much more than suffering
Open and shut case for mercy
In our city, and throughout the world during this Year of Mercy, several churches have Holy Doors. They’re pilgrimage sites, just like the one at St. Peter’s in Rome, only much closer.
Getting rid of the bitterness
“I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes.”
Exposing the lies depression spreads
A woman was sitting with her spiritual director. Not quite “sitting”; collapsed like a rag doll, listlessly staring at the floor. He looked at her. He urged her to pray: stop doing, stop trying to get herself out of the dark place she was in. “What good will it do?” she bleated, equally unsurprisingly. She hadn’t read Richard Dawkins’ description of prayer as uselessly “murmuring in our heads,” but would have resonated. Then, bitterly: “Is God going to send me a rose?”
Ideas of God may be obsolete, but God isn’t
My mother and I have an annual tradition of spending a day together at the Canadian National Exhibition. This year, as we sat in sunny chairs near a shady gingko tree, listening to the approaching parade, a tall man folded himself into the neighbouring chair. Taking a break from his booth, he told us it was his 38th year exhibiting there. He showed us a smooth rounded stone with a hole in the middle: a cobblestone he’d reclaimed from the lake. They were dumped there because they were obsolete, but he finds beauty in them.
The alternative to change is the cross
“Change is good!” So proclaimed a brightly smiling instructor to her dismayed class, who’d just learned their school was being moved to a different corner of the city. Somehow it didn’t feel quite as good as the neon smile and cheery voice pronounced it should.
Without gratitude, we lose everything
At a conference I attended in Belgium, people around the dinner table got talking about the different countries they were from, and the characteristic spirit of each nation.
In death, we learn the story of love
My sister and I used to get season’s tickets to the ballet. They brought colour, beauty and music to long winters, and gave us an opportunity to visit. They also took us to performances we wouldn’t normally select, which is how we ended up at a performance of Swan Lake. We had tickets, so we went.
Take time to appreciate what God has given
Hearts on fire
It can be tough to speak up even when something burns inside you. Especially if everybody seems happiest not saying or hearing it, and you wonder if you’re crazy or misguided, and won’t you look like a fool or a downer if you do say it.
We can’t always trust happiness
One of the most gifted actors I’ve observed is Robert Duvall. From fearless napalm-loving Lt. Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, to shy retired Cuban barber in Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, or mild-mannered consigliere of The Godfather, he gives life to an astonishing array of characters.