From the category archives:

Spirituality

Fellow blogger Tim Muldoon (see his post on desire below) has written an excellent article about what’s needed to help young people form the intimate bond that sustains marriage.  Dating is passe.  The hookup culture is the norm.  Young people “stumble from one defective friendship to another without a strong sense of how to deepen [...]

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With the feast day of Saint Augustine coming up later this week (August 28) I have been thinking about his (likely) influence on Saint Ignatius–specifically, Augustine’s writing about desire in his autobiographical Confessions.  One of his most insightful comments comes upon reflecting on his first experience of heading off as a student to the big [...]

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I do some of my best thinking and praying while running or biking.  This morning I considered how biking hills is not a bad analogy to the discernment of consolation and desolation in the spiritual life.  Here’s the idea. Coming to the beginning of a long upward climb can be a daunting experience.  You see [...]

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I took my girls to a place called Purgatory Chasm and had a metaphor experience.  Metaphor experiences are of course those things you do which, once they are accomplished, emerge as perfect metaphors for life.  And I tend to encounter them frequently because I look for them, and that, according to my wife, makes me [...]

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Over the past two weeks I’ve had the remarkable experience of being a nearly full-time Dad.  My wife has started a new job and has undergone an orientation process that’s taken her away from home for some time, so we’ve found ourselves switching roles. It’s been a profound process of discovery for me.  This is [...]

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I recently took my girls to the drive-in to see the remake of a film I enjoyed when I was younger–The Karate Kid.  Now, several days removed from seeing it, I find myself struck by how much it resonates with a key Ignatian theme. First, a note for parents: there are some hard scenes for [...]

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Today is the last day you can download your free copy of the new book What’s Your Decision? How to Make Choices with Confidence and Clarity.  Here it is. We’ll continue to offer special discounts on printed copies of the book through August 15. Go here for details. You might also want to take a [...]

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Tim Muldoon argues that Ignatian spirituality speaks to the postmodern sensibility because it prizes imagination and experience rather than doctrine and analysis: It is based on a personal, imaginative exploration of the gospel, and it invites people to choose freely to deepen their intimacy with God through a deepened understanding of who they themselves are. [...]

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Paul Campbell, SJ, talks about his personal prayer practices. (“The most important thing I do is to see a spiritual director.”) Jim Martin, SJ, on sexual abuse and the Sacred Heart. How the St. Louis Jesuits changed liturgical music. (“One person credits them with wrecking the liturgy and the next person credits them with saving [...]

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The Jesuit theologian Walter Burghardt once described contemplation as “a long, loving look at the real.”  As I understand him, he meant that to the extent that we behold the world as God has made it, come to see its contours designed lovingly by a loving creator, we become aware of the presence of the [...]

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