There’s a lovely article about Hildegard of Bingen by Erin Risch Zountendam posted this morning on the blog “Earth and Altar.” Hildegard, one of the four female doctors of the Western Church, was a theologian, a prophet, a mystic and a naturalist. Her life and her theology is, to my mind, one of the clearest examples of my argument that most scientists are, in truth, mystics at heart – seeking to understand a deeper meaning […]
To imitate Jesus is to live a life that is characterized by self-control (temperance) and meekness. To live that way is to live a virtuous life. We don’t talk very much these days about the need to live virtuously in our own lives. It seems we’ve gotten very good at pointing out the flaws in others – even in the Church. But Jesus gives us a model of what can happen when we live a […]
Paul writes to the Galatians and strongly affirms their freedom in the Gospel. But he warns that their freedom can become a base of operations for earthly passions and emotions to create division and pain. The reading from Luke’s Gospel this week, where the disciples want Jesus to smite the Samaritans because they don’t agree with Jesus’ behavior, is an example of what Paul is talking about. So too is this long month of the […]
It has been a difficult couple of weeks for our nation. We have suffered through multiple mass shooting events. Two in particular by teenage males, a racially motivated in Buffalo and the shooting of school children in Texas, have been shattering. We are in pain. We know we need to do something, but we’ve known that for a long time and nothing seems to change. The majority of people in this country want to change […]
The thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is so familiar to us that even has its own nickname: the Wedding lesson. It’s so often chosen as one of the lessons to be read at a marriage service that it’s become a cliche, even a joke in a movie about wedding crashers. But the truth is that part of the letter that St. Paul wrote, has nothing at all to do with marriage. […]
The long awaited new era breaking in upon us. The Gospel is world changing – the stories are life changing. We have a duty to act. Not in ways that the powerful, the greedy and the grasping can understand, but in the way that recognizes the effectiveness of what Jesus asking us to share with others. You have amazing gifts to share the Gospel. Don’t lose sight of what we are tasked by Jesus to […]
Some of you know that I’m a vowed member of a dispersed religious order called the Society of Ordained Scientists. It’s been an important part of my life and helped to focus my work on the integration between faith and science since I became a member. Mother Pan Conrad is the Warden of the North American Chapter of the society, and a friend. She’s also a wicked smart scientist and is principle investigator a couple […]
