The end of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI is a dramatic one. It leaves the Catholic world at a kind of ecclesiastical hiatus between two worlds. The church that brought us to Vatican II, however hard Benedict XVI tried to restore it, is more distant than ever. It is...

Give us, O God,
leaders whose hearts are large enough
to match the breadth of our own souls
and give us souls strong enough
to follow leaders of vision and wisdom.

In seeking a leader, let us seek
more than development for ourselves--
though...

Three debates by candidates for president and vice-president, and not once has the word "climate" crossed their lips. Nor has "the poor" or "poverty."

On the missing "climate": Only a scathing remark from one candidate about investments in renewable energy being far too large, and from the other, a commitment...

As Vatican II ended, I was just about to begin doctoral studies in communication theory and social psychology. I didn't know a lot about either subject at the time, but, with one foot in religious life spawned by the Council of Trent and the other in a religious life awash...

The following is an excerpt from, "Following the Path: The Search for a Life of Passion, Purpose, and Joy."

What does it mean "to have a purpose?"

"It's not easy to know what you're supposed to be doing in life."

"Maybe not,...

Dear God, creator of women in your own image,
born of a woman in the midst of a world half women,
carried by women to mission fields around the globe, made known by women to all the children of the earth,
give to the women of our...

Excerpted from "Journey Into Light: Lent 2012"

Today, at an empty tomb full of light, begins the gathering of the community, of a small and fragile assembly of believers left to their own devices, of disciples whose faith has been shaken by the dashing of the dream....

Please join the HuffPost community in "A Lenten Journey" for reflections throughout Lent, and join our online Lenten community here.

The following is excerpted from "Journey Into Light"

Sometimes, it is only in darkness that we can really see clearly. I look up at...

Please join the HuffPost community in "A Lenten Journey" for reflections throughout Lent, and join our online Lenten community here.

The following is excerpted from "Journey Into Light"

Light and dark are the colors of life. No life is ever all of one or...

Where does this notion of the Divine Feminine come from? Is the question of the Divine Feminine simply a current fad? A silly notion of even sillier feminists? Or could it possibly have deep and ineradicable roots in the tradition itself?

However much we mock the idea, the truth is,...

Editor's Note: Buddhist monks from Tibet who spend their lives going from place to place, from occasion to occasion, making sand mandalas, sacred cosmograms, that originated in India over 2,500 years ago, are coming to Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania this week. A few years ago, after witnessing the mandala...

In the midst of a university conference on US Foreign Policy and International Relations, I got three cell phone calls dolling out the news: First, the World Trade Tower had been hit by a plane. Then, the second tower, too, had been struck. Finally, the country might be under attack....

The Holy Spirit embodies the life force of the universe, the power of God, the animating energy present in all things and captured by none. On this great feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit of God, I invite you to pray with me:

May the Gifts of the...

"Your way of acting should be different from the world's way."

The search for God is a very intimate enterprise. It is at the core of every longing in the human heart. It is the search for ultimate love, for total belonging, for the meaningful life.

It is our attempt...

Monday: Holy Week is the church's great celebration of life in all its dimensions: communion with others in the Spirit, the call to suffer if necessary for the sake of the gospel, the sometimes loneliness of total commitment and the glory of living in the Christ, whatever the cost. It...

"Turn away from evil and do good; let peace be your quest and aim."

Over the archway of medieval monasteries were commonly carved the wordsPax Intrantibus, "Peace to those who enter here."

These words were both a hope and a promise.

Benedict's vision of the peaceable kingdom was...

There is one thing Benedict teaches us before all other possible insights about the spiritual life and that is this: God is with us. It is as simple as that. God does not need to be earned. God cannot be merited. God is not persuaded by human behavior to attend...

Ash Wednesday signals the beginning of that season of the church year that is most commonly associated with penance. But there is a danger lurking in that definition. If penance is all that Lent is about, the season, if not almost useless, is at least somewhat trivial. It makes the...

When Pope John XXIII talked about "the signs of the times" -- poverty, nuclearism, sexism -- I began to read these new signs with a new conscience and with a new sense of religious life in mind. Most of all, I began to read the scriptures through another lens. Who...

Mystery is what happens to us when we allow life to evolve rather than having to make it happen all the time. It is the strange knock at the door, the sudden sight of an unceremoniously blooming flower, an afternoon in the yard, a day of riding the midtown bus....