My mother claws at her chin. The skin is red and raw. Sometimes it bleeds. If a protective scab forms over the wound, my mother scrapes it off.
The gerontology nurse tells us this behavior is typical of senile dementia. There is nothing to be done, except, perhaps, to “give her something else to do with her hands.”
Professor Raimon Panikkar, one of the greatest scholars of the 20th century in the areas of comparative religion, theology, and inter-religious dialogue, died at his home in Tavertet, near Barcelona, Spain, Aug. 26. He was 91.
Panikkar taught and lived in the United States from 1966-1987 and was known to generations of students here and around the world through both his lectures and his many books. What they heard and read were the arresting reflections of a multi-dimensional person, who was simultaneously a philosopher, theologian, mystic, priest and poet.
I’ve never had much luck with Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. The first time I ever kept her day, I was in theology graduate school with a bunch of people who should have known better. That some of us didn’t know better became clear when I walked into an empty classroom and found, under an invitation to remember Kateri Tekakwitha in prayer, directions to the “great oak” chalked on the board.
Let's face it. There are some books that should never be made into movies.
Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth "Liz" Gilbert, my favorite book of 2008, is one of these.
I wanted to like the film, but got an inkling it might not live up to my expectations when I saw Julia Roberts, who plays Liz in the film, ride a bicycle along a tropical byway with what looks like a pasted-on smile. It didn't ring true and in my heart of hearts, I knew that the film might look good, but would miss the depth of Liz's one-year search for meaning.
Mission Management
The Catholic church in the United States is facing a daunting challenge in trying to reach and provide spiritual formation for its estimated 65 million members.
According to a recent survey, 64 percent of U.S. Catholics do not attend Mass on a weekly basis. The survey, published in 2009 by Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., indicates that the fastest-growing segment of U.S. believers is the “Nones,” those who are “spiritual” but practice no formal religion. In 1990, the Nones accounted for 8.1 percent of the population, or 14 million people. By 2008, that number had risen to 15 percent, or 34 million people. And of that group, 35 percent identify themselves as former Catholics.
Earth and Spirit
How sensual our world is. A lilac bush has spread its blooms outside my window at home while inside green beans simmer on the stove, as yeasty rolls bake in the oven. My wife crushes dried basil and oregano leaves harvested from our summer garden for a stew, wafting heady scent-detonations through the air. Out of good stereo speakers, Mexican cantina lyrics sung with a lusty, spine-chilling vibrato weave in and out of exuberantly melancholy mariachi trumpets.
Have you ever taken pictures at a special event and then found that the photos were out of focus? Or written something, and later realized what were you trying to say was too convoluted to understand?
ANAHEIM, CALIF. -- If one were to ask a central casting office in Hollywood to find someone to play a bigtime spiritual guru with his own media empire, the choice probably wouldn’t look much like Oblate Fr. Ron Rolheiser. Short, bespectacled, and decidedly non-flamboyant, Rolheiser comes off more like a high school teacher with a wry sense of humor than a Catholic version of Joel Osteen, Tony Robbins or Deepak Chopra.
Yet without theatrics or any real self-promotion, the 62-year-old Rolheiser has become one of the most popular writers and speakers on Catholic spirituality in the English-speaking world. His signature book, The Holy Longing, has sold more than 200,000 copies in hardback, his weekly column is syndicated in more than 60 newspapers in various countries, and Rolheiser is in perpetual demand to give workshops, retreats, and days of recollection all over the world.
We Catholics have new sins for the 21st century. The old sins -- sloth, envy, gluttony, lust, pride -- have a “rather individualistic dimension,” said Vatican official Msgr. Gianfranco Girotti in 2008. “The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an individual one,” he said, naming new transgressions for a new age.
I was not raised in a linguistically sensitive family. My parents called us “stupid” when they thought we were. They employed the full range of locally well-known, inaccurate and often hateful words and phrases for people of different skin colors and abilities.
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