In the spring and early summer of 1994, I was a sophomore in college. I spent the late semester gnashing my teeth about who got which solo parts in the orchestra, and my summer working on the farm. I was aware enough of the world to know something awful was going on in a country…
Read MoreAll articles filed in Religion and Spirituality
Guest Post: Blessed Are the Peacemakers (This Little Light of Mine Blog Tour, week 7)
Today’s guest post comes from Barb Mecker. Barb is my sister-in-law’s mother and a woman I respect tremendously for her love, faith, and passion for life. I hope you will enjoy her thoughts on making peace in this decidedly unpeaceful world. * When I hear the Beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the children of…
Read MoreBlessed Are The Merciful (TLL Review and Excerpt)
Chapter 5 of This Little Light of Mine: Living the Beatitudes ties together the idea of mercy with the 4th through 10th commandments–as I like to call them, the “rubber-meets-the-road” commandments. Today’s excerpt comes from the section for children. Have you ever heard that old saying, “What goes around, comes around?” That’s kind of what…
Read MoreGuest Post: Blessed Are The Merciful (This Little Light Blog Tour, Week 5)
Today I welcome blogger, columnist and author Sarah Reinhard to the blog. Her charm and humor shines through everything she writes, and today’s offering, in which she really digs down to the heart of a lived faith, is no exception! * The Rubber Meets the Road with the Merciful So often, I love the thinking, theory…
Read MoreGuest Post: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Week 2, This Little Light Blog Tour)
I met Barbara Shoeneberger through the blogosphere, as we both participate in a weekly Catholic carnival. She has approached her chronic health issues with a beautiful attitude of faith. I hope her thoughts today will illuminate the sufferings in your lives as well. * Nobody gets through this life without mourning. Mourning implies loss of…
Read MoreParadox and Contradiction
Call it reversals, call it paradox–Christianity is full of them, and they are a sometimes insurmountable stumbling block for people contemplating religious belief. To destroy yourself in order to find yourself, to die in order to live, to consider yourself blessed when you are mourning, or poor in spirit, or persecuted…to people steeped in the idea…
Read MoreThe Lent You Want vs. the Lent You Need
I confess: I have an idealized view of Lent. My first spring in grad school, Lent came like a breath of renewal on the heels of one of the most difficult six months of my life. My first semester had been a nightmare of homesickness and a hellish roommate situation interspersed with glorious moments of…
Read MoreIt’s Here!
Oh, what it takes to get a not-quite-four-year-old to take a usable picture… …while the baby invokes his Right To Wiggle All Over Mommy’s Lap Any Time She Sits Upon The Floor…. * * * Oh, there they are! This Little Light of Mine: Living the Beatitudes, coming soon from Liguori Publications! The point of this…
Read MoreLosing Our Religion: A Response
NPR did a series last week called “Losing Our Religion.” In this story—the only one I heard in full–the interviewees talked about their ambivalence and in some cases rejection of faith. The ones that really struck me were those who experienced suffering and untimely death in their families, and concluded that God couldn’t exist, because…
Read MoreReality Beats the Fairy Tale All To Pieces
When I was ten, I thought I was going to go to Calcutta and be one of Mother Teresa’s nuns. Well, anyway, some kind of a nun. I remember spending one whole library visit looking through the lists of religious orders and seeing which ones sounded the most exciting. By the time I was in…
Read More
Kathleen M. Basi 