“Hear, O Israel” (Deu. 6:4)

Originally posted on Neal Obstat Theological Opining:
“Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” ― David Augsburger Today I offer you another audio post on prayer. I recorded it sponaneously early last week after I had an encounter that deeply moved me. It’s about 15 minutes…

The iPhone Keeps Us Grasping

The iPhone Keeps Us Grasping Today more than ever we are immersed in a culture of consumerism and demand. We are a generation brought up with iPods, laptops, and in later years iPhones and iPads. We’ve become unaware of the ways we’ve bought into and are hooked on the consumerist impulse. Even a simple commercial […]

Feminist Ferverino

Source: Feminist Ferverino

Fleeing escapism

Originally posted on Neal Obstat Theological Opining:
islamicreflections1.files.wordpress.com There can be so much escapism in our striving for a “spiritual life.” We often flee from the concrete, apparently banal reality that is filled with God’s presence to an artificial existence that corresponds with our own ideas of piety and holiness, but where God is not…

Scattered thoughts on rest

Originally posted on Neal Obstat Theological Opining:
Mother Teresa. originentertainment.com Rest. I’ve always cherished the thought of heaven as eternal rest. God rested on the seventh day of creation, so we also get to rest. So Genesis goes. God commanded Pharaoh in Egypt to let his people go so they could worship in the desert, since worship…

Father

As I reflect on the first Sunday of Advent, I’m reminded of the way the Father constantly molds my heart. In the first reading from Isaiah, he says “You, LORD, are our Father.” While the lector was reading this line during Mass on Sunday, the baby behind me was repeating “daddy, daddy, daddy” to her […]

Ways St. John Paul II impacts the youth

Today is a special day for Catholics all around the world as we celebrate and remember the life of our late beloved pontiff, St. John Paul II. Hearing witnesses of people meeting him or reading his most famous quotes on the internet, I always knew he was pope when I was growing up, but I […]

Challenging the Christian.

“Today, our challenge is not so much atheism as the need to respond adequately to many people’s thirst for God, lest they try to satisfy it with alienating solutions or with a disembodied Jesus who demands nothing of us with regard to others. Unless these people find in the Church a spirituality which can offer healing and liberation, and fill them with life and peace, while at the same time summoning them to fraternal communion and missionary fruitfulness, they will end up by being taken in by solutions which neither make life truly human nor give glory to God.”
-Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium

The River We Receive

In the book I’m reading right now called The Wellspring of Worship by Fr. Jean Corbon, he dives into the mystery of the liturgy itself. The segment I read today (pg. 31) was very substantial: “‘At the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in this garden a new tomb in which […]

Praise God for the people around you.

Yesterday my friends and I went to the local water park. We jammed out in the car on the way there, laughed at each other and with each other, talked about meaningful and meaningless things, met beautiful people that helped us overcome fears of getting on a slide, and made memories that will last forever. […]