• Where Do Papal Encyclicals Go if They Die?

  Is the pope’s new encyclical on the environment an instant classic or his most successful failure?

  

• With All Your Mind

  God said to the high and low IQs alike, "You shall love me with all your mind." Nobody, or rather, no mind is exempt. In theory our first thoughts, like our first fruits, belong to God. In practice, however, holy thinking and holy learning are often wholly absent amongst our everyday priorities and practices.

  

• Why Do We Pray?

  God made reality with prayer in mind. It's an essential part of the infrastructure of everyday life. In fact, prayer is as much (and more) a language of reality as mathematics, chemistry or physics. The supernatural and the natural are not separate in Christ - for all reality is His reality. As such, God invites us to pray about everything, not as if it were so, but because it is so.

  

• A More Abundant Life

  A life lived like Jesus can be truly unremarkable. The vast majority of it might be incredibly normal, seemingly uneventful, and at times quite boring.

  

• The S-Word

  It is considered a mark of maturity to endure the company of the unwanted, to abide the annoying, and bear the unbearable. And so it is, but this is not yet Christian maturity. A Christian is not merely to suffer another, but for another. This is love.