exclamation

Important notice: To continue serving our valued readers during the postal disruption, complete unrestricted access to the digital edition is available at no extra cost. This will ensure uninterrupted digital access to your copies. Click here to view the digital edition, or learn more.

Ronald Rolheiser, a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas.

He is a community-builder, lecturer and writer. His books are popular throughout the English-speaking world and his weekly column is carried by more than seventy newspapers worldwide.


Fr. Rolheiser can be reached at his website, www.ronrolheiser.com

What does it profit you if you gain the whole world but suffer the loss of your own soul?

Our overestimated grandiosity

By

There are now more than seven billion people on this Earth and each one of us feels that he or she is the centre of the universe. That accounts for most of the problems we have in the world, in our neighbourhoods, in our families.

So much beyond our imagination

By

Recently, at an academic dinner, I was sitting across the table from a nuclear scientist. At one point, I asked him this question: “Do you believe that there’s human life on other planets?” His answer surprised me: “As a scientist, no, I don’t believe there’s human life on another planet. Scientifically, the odds are strongly against it. But, as a Christian, I believe there’s human life on other planets. Why? My logic is this: Why would God choose to have only one child?”

We see in Jesus’ eyes, God is good

By

God, as I understand Him, is not very well understood. A colleague of mine, now deceased, was fond of saying that. It’s a wise comment.

Dorothy Day — a saint for our time

By

Some time soon we will witness the canonization of Dorothy Day. For many people, especially those who are not Roman Catholic, a canonization draws little more than a yawn. How does a canonization impact our world? Moreover, isn’t canonization simply the recognition of a certain piety to which most people cannot relate? So why should there be much interest around the canonization of Dorothy Day — who in fact protested that she didn’t want people to consider her a saint and asserted that making someone a saint often helps neutralize his or her influence?

Human nature: is it somehow all wrong?

By

An American humorist was once asked what he loved most in life. This was his reply: I love women best; whisky next; my neighbour a little; and God hardly at all!

Sometimes, political correctness is simply correct

By

Just because something is politically correct doesn’t mean that it might not also be correct. Sometimes we have to swallow hard to accept truth.

A eucharistic prayer over an awakening world

By

We too are covenanted to say Mass for the world

The healing place that is silence

By

A recent book by Robyn Cadwallander, The Anchoress, tells the story of a young woman, Sarah, who chooses to shut herself off from the world and lives as an Anchoress (like Julian of Norwich). It’s not an easy life and she soon finds herself struggling with her choice. Her confessor is a young, inexperienced monk named Fr. Ranaulf. Their relationship isn’t easy. Ranaulf is a shy man, of few words, and so Sarah is often frustrated with him, wanting him to say more, to be more empathic and simply to be more present to her. They often argue, or, at least, Sarah tries to coax more words and sympathy out of Ranaulf. But whenever she does this he cuts short the visit and leaves.

Healing through positive growth in our hearts

By

All of us live with some wounds, bad habits, addictions and temperamental flaws that are so deeply engrained and long-standing that it seems like they are part of our genetic make-up. And so we tend to give into a certain quiet despair in terms of ever being healed of them.

Jesus is the humblest of foot soldiers

By

Several years ago, the movie Argo won the Academy Award as best movie of the year. I enjoyed the movie in that it was a good drama, one that held its audience in proper suspense even as it provided some good humour and banter on the side. But I struggled with several aspects of the film.