We Are All Called to be Preachers

A Tent Large (and Strong) Enough

The Beginning of Advent
Today is the First Sunday in Advent, the beginning of my favorite liturgical season. The term “Advent” comes from that Latin “adventus,” which means “coming.” Advent is a period of waiting and expectation and of preparing. For what? For the Israelites, there was a long Advent preceding the coming of the Messiah. That long waiting, which lasted generations and generations, is chronicled in the Old Testament, as the world and God’s people waited for the coming of Christ. For us, each year we go through again this period of waiting during the four weeks of Advent. Our waiting is, of course, different from that of the Israelites.

Hidden Jesus
I’m currently reading a small book by Fr. Richard W. Gilsdorf called Go to Joseph, which offers insights into St. Joseph, about whom we are told very little in the Bible. I’ve been reading a chapter every morning as part of my morning prayer period. (This post is not about St. Joseph, by the way.) In one chapter, Gilsdorf talks about Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. He describes Mary riding astride the donkey “like a living monstrance,” and then talks about their difficulty finding shelter in the evenings. I was arrested by the designation of Mary as a “living monstrance.” What came to mind as I read

Advent Retreat in Daily Living – Our Longing for God
This Sunday is the beginning of Advent, the period during which we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ at Christmas. It is my favorite time in the liturgical calendar. As I did last year, this year I am giving a four week Advent Retreat in Daily Living at the University of St. Thomas School of Law (and also at St. Hubert). During a retreat in daily living, the participants commit to pray each day with material I provide them with and we meet weekly, during which meetings I give a brief talk that relates to the material they will be praying with that week. The participants are also given time during the weekly meeetings to share with each other in small groups their

We Give Thanks
Today those of us in the United States celebrate Thanksgiving Day. The first national observance of Thanksgiving came at the recommendation of President Washington that the people of the United States observe Thursday, November 26, 1789, “as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God.” Washington’s proclamation asked the American people to “beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be bes

God Has a Cousin
Looking through a pile of books in my study, I came across one I hadn’t looked at in a while – a book of short poems by Cynthia Rylant called God Went to Beauty School. The book consists of a number of short poems that describe God in very human terms. Some would doubtless find the poems a bit irreverent, but they convey God in very real terms and describe a very personal relationship with God. There are two poems in the collection I particularly like, one of which is titled God Has a Cousin. I think part of the appeal for me is that it invites us to think differently about the extent of the rift between God and Lucifer. But I think par