Articles

The Body in Early Monasticism

September 25, 2017 | Stephen Adubato

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” It was with the inspiration of this Gospel passage that St. Antony the Great took off to the deserts of Egypt to begi...

The Catholic Imagination is Ecclesial (Or It's Not Really Catholic)

September 22, 2017 | Timothy P. O’Malley

In two previous articles, Artur Rosman, the Editor-in-Chief of Church Life, has advanced a proposal for what constitutes the Catholic imagination. According to Rosman, the Catholic imagination is often employed in…

Friendship with the Beloved Disciple as Type in a Theology of Friendship

September 21, 2017 | Jonathan Sammut

In the Fourth Gospel, the nameless character is introduced at the Last Supper as “the one whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). He is explicitly named again under the Cross (John 19:26), at the empty tomb (John 20:2), and post-resu...

Friendship with God is the Basis for All Friendships

September 20, 2017 | Jonathan Sammut

The imagery of friendship is present in the first half of John’s narrative, but it comes into sharpest focus in the second half of the Gospel, particularly during the Last Supper, when Jesus refers to his disciples as “friend...

Lazarus

Human Need in Game of Thrones and the Word of God

September 19, 2017 | Eric T. Styles

Keep this in mind, dear brothers and sisters. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for a person’s anger does not fulfill God’s justice. Strip away all that is filthy, every vicious excess. Humbly ...

An Enduring Basis for Friendship as Taught by Jesus in the Gospel of John

September 18, 2017 | Jonathan Sammut

Coming to South Bend in the Summer of 2016 from the Maltese islands, a little more than rocks in the Mediterranean, I marveled at the vast expanses of the Midwest and its array of tall, verdant trees. My daily route from the Notre Dame c...

Reading Recommendations from the Catholic Imagination Conference

September 15, 2017 | Madeline Infantine

I would like to wrap up my reflections about Fordham's Catholic Imagination Conference, which are part of Church Life Journal's discussion of what the "Catholic…

The Dramatic Double Vision of the Catholic Imagination

September 14, 2017 | Artur Sebastian Rosman

For the Catholic imagination, the world is fallen but redeemable. It is not parked firmly in either heaven or hell.

The Single Most Important Thing I Noticed at the Fordham Catholic Imagination Conference

September 13, 2017 | Madeline Infantine

As I mentioned previously in the piece Things I Received at the Fordham Catholic Imagination Conference, at the end of April I was given the opportunity to attend the 2nd…

Jesus and the Old Testament

September 12, 2017 | Brian Pedraza

The Word of God grows its roots in the heart the more one shares it with others. That is why one of the surest ways of growing in knowledge and love for the Scriptures is to teach them to others, an opportunity I had for the first time (...

Using Metaphors to Teach Prayer

September 07, 2017 | Ronald K. Bullis

Scriptures pulse with metaphorical phrases and images (“The Lord is my shepherd . . .”). Jesus’s description of the Kingdom of God is a metaphor. The National Directory for Catechesis [NDC] urges catechists to recognize...

Gebhard Fugel Moses Vor Dem Brennenden Dornbusch C1920

Restoring Sacramental Magic

September 06, 2017 | Timothy P. O’Malley

This summer, I attended the biennial congress in Leuven, Belgium of Societas Liturgica, an ecumenical gathering of liturgical historians, theologians, and musicians from throughout the world. The congress’ theme…

Miracleofloaves

Artificial Wombs and the Intellectual Tasks of Building Cultures of Life

September 05, 2017 | Jessica Keating Floyd

When Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI met with artists in the Sistine chapel in 2009, he noted that “an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy 'shock,' it draws him out of himself, wr...

Things I Received at the Fordham Catholic Imagination Conference

August 31, 2017 | Madeline Infantine

When I received this treasure of practical writing and reading advice I also received a deeper awareness of God at work.

The Confused Catholic Imagination

August 30, 2017 | Artur Sebastian Rosman

It is commonplace to assume that the imagination is opposed to reality. This is not the prevailing understanding of the imagination in contemporary theory and theology. Let’s start with the following classic rock lyrics to clarify ...

A Memory of Peace

August 29, 2017 | Tom Eggleston

Millions of people converged on Krakow, Poland about a year ago. While among them I gained the ability to imagine a world at peace. I can now imagine global peace. I also know that the Church has something to teach the world about it. In...

Agrarian Insights on Ecological Conversion

August 28, 2017 | Brian Kennedy, C.S.C.

Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ posed a tremendous challenge for the Church and the entire world. Although the encyclical letter was seen widely as an intervention on climate change negotiations, it in fact offered much more ...

Brock Farm

Dissecting Jesus

August 25, 2017 | Novice Joseph Wagner, O.S.B.

The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ . . . and the Mystical Body of Christ is the Church. I cannot remember the number of times I had to explain this to my ecclesiology classes: “The Church is . . . ?” (Without alacrity)...

A Crisis of Eucharist: Will Our Children Stay Catholic?

August 24, 2017 | Brad Klingele

My brethren, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and you pay a...

Klingele

The Good of Communal Life

August 23, 2017 | Hope Feist

I sat at my community’s small dining room table with my heart overflowing in gratitude. The events of that evening gave me occasion to pause and consider the ways that I have been blessed to live in an intentional faith community w...

Image For Hope Feist Community Piece

St. Maximilian Kolbe and the War Against Indifference

August 16, 2017 | Jessica Keating Floyd

More than one concentration camp survivor has remarked that one would need the pen of Dante to describe the horrors that afflicted the “great army of unknown and unrecorded victims.”[1] Hell is that abyss that skews vision an...

Kolbe

The Hope of the Assumption

August 15, 2017 | Timothy P. O’Malley

Glorious things are spoken of you, O Mary, who today were exalted above the choirs of Angels into eternal triumph with Christ (Entrance Antiphon, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) Elite athletes exist at the edge of the possible...

Francisblessedvirgin

The Supper of the Lamb

August 10, 2017 | Timothy P. O’Malley

Today, I boarded a train from Leuven (where Societas Liturgica is meeting) for Ghent. After years of teaching the Mass to undergraduates, of inviting them to gaze with wonder upon the supper of the Lamb of Van Eyck, I couldn't leave Belg...

The Ignatian Spiritual Journey

July 31, 2017 | Megan Shepherd

Megan Shepherd on the life and conversion of St. Ignatius.

Shepherd Ignatius Crop

Echo Alumni Interviews: Michele Chronister

July 27, 2017 | The Editors

In celebration of the graduation of Echo 12 on Saturday July 29, 2017, Church Life featured interviews with select Echo alumni. This interview is with Michele Chronister, of Echo 6. Michele served as an Echo apprentice at the parish of&#...

Dsc 0722

2017