On Morning Edition, Steve Inskeep interviewed Senator Marco Rubio about last night's Republican debate. Like many political interviews, it included grandstanding in which Senator Rubio offered talking points rather than answering questions. But, the substance of the interview was never really about Rubio: it was about Trump. It was about Rubio's insulting of Trump. It was about Rubio's pledge to v...
In the Sunday lectionary, there is often an obvious connection between the reading from the Old Testament and the Gospel. Yet, the third Sunday of Lent requires a bit of work from the reader to discern how the two texts are mutually illuminating.
Email is well suited for promoting un-meditated thinking. We say something. Hit send. And boom—it’s out there. We can’t selectively remember or reimagine what we said, as in a verbal conversation—there’s a record. But sometimes a slip of the keyboard can be revealing.
In light of the recent trip of Pope Francis to Mexico and his visit to the Basilica of Guadalupe, the person of St. Juan Diego provokes an invitation to consider his virtues and those of other Latinos who have imitated his “practical Christianity.”[2] We know from the Nican Mopohua that the intensity of his conversion to the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe was matched only by his ardent desire to...
Lent comes from the same old English root as lengthen – it’s a reference to the lengthening of the daylight hours in the Northern Hemisphere’s spring. In other words, Lent is the church’s springtime, a time of increasing light helping us to see more clearly, a season of new life and renewal, a time to renew our love. This is why the old missal could pray, “Each year you (God) give us this joyful s...
Matthew Levering’s newest publication, Mary's Bodily Assumption (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015) sheds bright light on his passion for and expertise in ecumenical dialogue. Erudite and supplied with extensive notes, this ambitious and thought-provoking work aims at showing how Mary’s bodily Assumption, and by extension all Marian dogmas, is a logical implication of Mary’s mission...
Sickness and death, pain and grief—our own or others’—are perhaps the most powerful motives for human prayer. Even if someone’s doubt or indifference about God outweighs faith, sickness often leads them to ask for prayer. And when they ask, no matter how busy, how intimidated, or how apathetic we have become in our prayer life generally, most of us attempt, once again, to frame a prayer. How can s...
Have you ever reached a milestone of achievement of some sort, any sort, and felt the thrill (and perhaps the relief!) at accomplishing something, but the next major challenge in your life has not yet begun? In such moments, it seems like the year seems to pause, and time seems briefly suspended, as though searching for an insight, as though laboring in vision, seeking some moment of revelation, “...
Several years before Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C. passed away, he met with the directors of the Institute for Church Life in his office on the 13th floor of Hesburgh Library. In the course of this hour-long meeting, Fr. Ted described to us the original impetus for the establishment of the Institute. He wanted Notre Dame to be not simply a place that carried out excellent theological education at ...
Parents of young children are aware of the pushing of boundaries that our children perform when beginning to exercise their newly discovered will. If a hungry or sleepy toddler is told not to throw their stainless steel train, it is very likely that said toddler will launch this toy across the room with maximum velocity. The child will then stare into the eyes of the exasperated parent, daring mom...
