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Pursuing Oblation
I am a novice oblate of the Benedictine Monastery of the Holy Cross in Chicago, Illinois. My wife is, too. God willing, we will make our final oblation on Nov. 8, 2026. Benedictine oblates live the monastic way of life insofar as their state in life permits — they are, we might say, “everyday monks.”…
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Silence and Discretion
Recently, I had a bad cough. You know, the type that causes your chest and throat to burn and gives your once-six-pack-abs a good workout? Yes, that kind. The kind of cough that lingers as an evil tickle in the back of your throat. One false word, one false breath will cause it to explode…
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Make Space not Plans
I was doing some late-night reading a few days ago, perusing the latest edition of The Catholic Worker, the bi-monthly newspaper from New York City that still serves as an organ of the movement. A man named Trevor Brannigan contributed an article documenting his time at Peter Maurin Farm, located in Marlboro, NY (50 miles…
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How do you guys do it?
When people find out I have eight children, the most common question I get in response is, “How do you guys do it? How do you raise all those kids?” My most common response is usually, “we don’t do it very well.” And, that is true. Most of the time, we feel like we’re barely…
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Breaking the Silence
Today we commemorate the breaking of the Word’s silence. The Word had freely confined itself to the mysterious quiet of the womb, foreshadowing the willful silencing of the same Word in the tomb. Today is Christmas, when the Word broke its silence not with a word of wisdom or an eloquent soliloquy, but with the…
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No Worldly Ambition
He more or less asked me what I was doing working for four parishes in the middle of nowhere. And, I get it. I have a PhD. I’ve worked for the Archdiocese. I’ve taught at and run theology programs at a university. I suppose I was on a certain trajectory in his mind, probably involving…
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Our Method Is Coffee
Once, when pressed for his catechetical method for bringing individuals into the Church, my friend Lawain McNeil responded: “coffee.” Coffee is his method, and by this he means that the person and understanding the person in charity indicates the best way forward in accompaniment. He does this over coffee. So coffee is the method. For…
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On Culture and Idolizing It
The moment you idealize culture and pursue culture as an end unto itself, you kill the possibility of its coming to fruition. Culture is not contrived so much as it is discovered within the personalities involved in and dynamism of a common pursuit. To idealize it and pursue the ideal usually amounts to idolatry. When…
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Prepare Him Room: It’s Christmas Again
“She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Lk 2:7). For many of us, these words cushion sweet, sentimental, and (probably) cartoonish images we have of a snuggly baby Jesus in soft blankets. But, with these words, Luke actually depicts a…
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Problem
In Thoughts in Solitude, Thomas Merton writes: In our age everything has to be a “problem.” Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by force from outside. We impose it on our world and upon one another from within ourselves. Merton…
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Brad Bursa 