We need to pursue with dogged fidelity the same reality again and again, going deeper every time, the repetition being the honour human weakness pays to the imitation of the inimitable one: Jesus, in whose image we are remade by grace that the love with which the Father has loved the Son may be in [...]
Honor the vision of your founders. Don’t be the generation that cuts itself off from its parents and that disinherits its children. Never be afraid to speak to and for the soul of this nation of which, by good fortune and God’s grace, you are privileged to be part of. In 2012, I had the [...]
John 17: 1-11 is one of the most mysterious, one of the most dazzling, passages in all of the New Testament. In it, we enter into the Sacred Heart, as into some vast cathedral where the soaring vaults carry both the thunder of the organ and the whisper of many prayers. It is hard to [...]
Franz Joseph Haydn composed the Mass in Time of War, his tenth setting of the Roman Catholic Mass in 1796, in the city of Eisenstadt, Austria, where he was the composer-in-residence-for Prince Esterhazy. At the time of its writing in August and its premier in December, French Revolutionary were winning victories in Italy and Germany [...]
What can our poor prayers—so broken like ourselves—do for if not echo constantly the very petition Jesus has made known to us? Nothing else will matter in eternity. John 17: 20-26 continues the priestly prayer of Jesus that we have been listening to throughout the week. Again, we hear its simple but sublime themes rehearsed: [...]
Listening is of the essence of obedience, the obedience of the Son to the Father and of the disciple to the Son. This is the first condition of joy: that it begins in an open obedience, an obedient openness to the Eternal Word, spoken in the communion of God’s love and shared with us through [...]
The mid-twentieth-century opera, “The Trial at Rouen,” tells the story of the final days of St. Joan of Arc, her imprisonment, and trial for heresy. Composer Norman Dello Joio employs themes of conscience, belief, and spiritual motivation; he makes us think about the consequences of institutional corruption and the power of individuals to rise above [...]
Let’s not let our consciences be deceived about how fragile our settlement with Jesus really is; how we need the living occupation of the Prince of Peace in our hearts for He came to make His home with us. Then and only then can we belong to the flock that He holds so that nobody [...]
The enemies of Christ, those who serve the cause of the ruler of this world, include the soothsayers of all false peace, the clients of easy accommodations, the mystical whisperers of seductive but superficial harmony draped in the fading popularity of this world. John 14: 27-31a comes right after Jesus’ teaching on the indwelling of [...]
Here is Nazareth, the neediest of Israel’s villages, well known as a place of dishonour. And yet, instead of celebrating their local celebrity, the people were filled with scepticism at Jesus’ works. "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary?" Matthew 13: 54-58 recounts an episode in which Jesus visits Nazareth [...]
Rest in peace, Michael Tilson Thomas. From those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area (and well beyond) who so enjoyed your years as music director, conductor, and the glorious face of the San Francisco Symphony, know that you will never be forgotten. I hate deaths. At the risk of stating the obvious, they [...]
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, presumably so as not to be observed. Yet the night in which he comes is our night also. The night has this double meaning: for on the one hand, we are blind and stumble about, while on the other hand, the night brings counsel. John 3: 7-15 continues the [...]
Since we are not greater than our Master, the recourse He invokes is our recourse also: we can, like Him, call upon the name of the Lord, of the Father, and thus we will in the end be delivered from our enemies because we know the Father. John 15: 18-21 comes from the discourse of [...]
My own continued admiration of Gerald Finzi’s majestic and moving anthem, "Lo, The Full, Final Sacrifice," lies not only in the masterful blend of music and words, but also in the confluence of so many personal memories that touch and move me. Sometimes a piece of music or art brings different aspects of one’s life [...]