All the quotes posted to Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) this past week, rounding out the end of the Season of Creation and moving into “ordinary time”: Prayer and comfortable living are incompatible. — Saint Teresa of Avila Christian spirituality proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable …
Tag Archives: Season of Creation
Closing Reflections on the Season of Creation
Last week entailed an almost frenetic rate of production: a translation of an 8000-word chapter given by Pope Francis to the priests of the Diocese of Rome; my 2000th post, dedicated to a summative reflection on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in Christian contemplation in its four main forms; a lengthy book review for …
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This Week’s Quotes Vol. 8
With a little delay due to the feast day of Saint Thérèse, here are the quotes posted to Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) this past week. The theme, until October 4, is still Christian contemplation in the Season of Creation., seen in the images chosen for the backgrounds, as well as in the selection of quotes themselves (though …
Saint Thérèse in the Season of Creation
In honour of what would be her feast day to celebrate, if it did not fall on a Sunday this year, enjoy this selection of quotes from Thérèse of Lisieux—all on the theme of created nature. A couple of the quotes display the saint’s attraction to the created things of this earth, which then propel …
The Gifts of the Holy Spirit in Different Christian Contemplative Experiences
This is a post which could easily become a historical or academic investigation, mired down in details and minutiae. I want very much to resist that. Instead, what matters to me is capturing and presenting a basic intuition that I have regarding Christian contemplative experience. Of course, without any painstaking research attached to it, and …
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This Week’s Quotes Vol. 7
Below are the quotes posted to Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) this past week: The best antidote against this misuse of our common home is contemplation. — Pope Francis Contemplation is like a pump that pulls up water and makes it pass into canals. If contemplation were to entirely cease, hearts would be soon dried up. — Raïssa …
Lessons from Mongolia
At the beginning of this month, Pope Francis travelled to Mongolia, a large country by physical size but a small country by population, the number of Catholics in which is hardly much more than that in my parish. I want to pull out some highlights from the August 31 – September 4 trip, which may …
This Week’s Quotes Vol. 6
In addition to the Mountain Suite, the quotes posted to Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) this week were the following. There is quite a bit of the Holy Cross, that feast having been this week, and of Hildegard of Bingen, her feast day being today. We would not want the Cross, no matter how sweet it is, …
Weathering the Storm
The Season of Creation coincides with what has, in recent decades and especially the past few years, become a period of greater frequency and severity of hurricanes, tropical storms, and post-tropical storms in the Canadian Maritimes, where I grew up and have come back to live. And not only this. We now have less snowy, …
Hildegard of Bingen in the Season of Creation: Popes Benedict XVI and Francis
The feast of Saint Hildegard of Bingen is a new one for the universal Church. Only declared a saint by Pope Benedict XVI using the process of equivalent canonization at Pentecost 2012,[1] Hildegard was quickly declared a Doctor of the Church in October of the same year.[2] Her feast was left unpromulgated, however, until Pope …
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Contemplative in the Mud 