To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here On November 1, 1755, the citizens of Lisbon, Portugal were crowded into churches. They were celebrating All Saints Day. At 9:40 am the world as they knew it came to an end. Somewhere offshore there was a sudden lurch at the intersection of two massive tectonic plates. What followed was one… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Let’s face it: Sean Astin is never going to live down Rudy. The 53-year-old actor is best known for playing the lead role in the 1993 film about Daniel Reuttiger, a real-life walk-on to the Notre Dame football team. He even lampooned himself in a commercial in which former NFL stars… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Frances Jane Crosby, who was born in New York in 1820, developed a minor eye inflammation when she was six weeks old. Although there have been differing accounts of a local doctor’s efforts to address her condition, they all agree on one thing: He did not make things better. The little… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here American playwright Thornton Wilder wrote a one-act play about a miracle that doesn’t take place. The Angel That Troubled the Waters debuted in 1928. It’s based on John chapter five, where the Gospel describes Jesus’ visit to the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. A host of sick people have gathered in… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here When someone else is hurting, it’s tempting to think our call is to do something amazing or to say something unusually wise. But most of the time, the need of the hour is simply to show up. In his recent bestseller How to Know a Person, cultural commentator David Brooks recounts… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Every day during this season of Lent we’re looking at the miracles of Jesus – his spectacular displays of supernatural power that are reported in the Gospels. Oxford don and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis spent most of his days as a contented bachelor. At the age of 57, however, he got the surprise… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here For the past three days, the world’s attention has once again zeroed in on one of humanity’s most enduring wounds. Israelis and Palestinians are in open conflict. Early on Saturday, without warning, members of Hamas operating out of Gaza launched thousands of rockets into Israel. Ground-based militants breached security checkpoints and poured across the… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish. What you see poised on a single human finger in the image above is a pinecone. But it’s not just any pinecone. That’s the primary reproductive apparatus for the California redwood, the tallest living thing on the planet. Every one of the cone’s woody “scales” is… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Great musicians write killer songs. One of history’s greatest musicians wrote a composition that almost “kills” those who are courageous enough to try to play it. We’re talking about Ludvig van Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, arguably the ultimate piano masterpiece from the man who almost singlehandedly defined the technical possibilities of the keyboard. Beethoven wrote 32… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Throughout the month of August, we’re looking at Ecclesiastes, that strange and seemingly “modern” Old Testament book that depicts what happens when humanity searches for ultimate meaning apart from God. As 2012 drew to a close, the Associated Press had already chosen its Story of the Year: the re-election of Barack Obama. Then on… Read more »