Brad Bursa

  • Christ and His Friend

    The intimacy portrayed in the icon caused me to double take. I had never seen anything like it. I’m speaking, of course, about the piece depicted above. It’s an early Coptic Christian icon depicting Jesus and Abbot Mena. Some refer to it as “Christ and his friend.” I see that, and I see in this…

    Brad Bursa

  • St. Gary of the Parish

    Spend any time at a Midwest parish (really any Catholic parish) and you’ll find some Garys and Debbies around. I’m talking about the parish fixtures, the small group of guys and gals who make the parish go ‘round. They volunteer to everything, run everything, sacrifice for everything. They know everyone and anticipate needs. They do…

    Brad Bursa

  • The Feeling of Things: On the Contemplation of Work

    I’ve come to realize I’m not particularly good at anything other than trying hard at everything. Working hard has roots in my own heredity, and deeper ones that tap into my immigrant ancestry. “I’ll outwork anyone” has been an underlying attitude of mine for most of my life. This has gotten me into trouble at…

    Brad Bursa

  • Firebird

    Streaking across the sky like a meteor, a firebird in flight. A bald eagle flapping wings on an easterly flight path aimed for the rising sun. The golden globe’s rays were, at the same time, reaching out to the earth, waking land and sky, and transfiguring the eagle before my eyes. As it flew higher…

    Brad Bursa

  • Something in the Way: An Easter Reflection

    I grew up on grunge. The raw emotion, rough vocals, evasive lyrics, and diversity of sounds fascinated me. I suppose in my emo adolescence, it soundtracked the drama of my life. I don’t listen to grunge much anymore, but I was recently reintroduced to Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” through Stephen Wilson Jr’s cover of…

    Brad Bursa

  • What is lectio divina?

    Lectio divina is an ancient practice that dates all the way back to the earliest stages of the monastic movement. The spirit of it can be found in St. Antony the Great (251-356), though many credit St. John Cassian (360-435) with bringing the practice to the West from the East. Regardless of its earliest origins,…

    Brad Bursa

  • Observations from my first Stephen Wilson Jr. concert

    My wife gifted me (us) tickets to the first stop on Stephen Wilson Jr.’s Gary the Torch tour in Columbus, Ohio last week. I’ve been listening to Stephen Wilson Jr. for, I don’t know, eight months or so. Overall, I’d say he’s wrecked me. There’s something about the depth of the poetry combined with grungy…

    Brad Bursa

  • Battle for Peace

    Battling for peace is an oxymoronic truth. The find the origins of the word “peace” in the common Hebrew greeting shalom. Shalom refers to being intact, complete, and whole, to soundness and welfare. It expressed harmony and communion with God that resulted from the covenant. Shalom refers to communion with God that brings peace, and…

    Brad Bursa

  • Crushed

    In today’s Gospel from Mark 3, we read: Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples.A large number of people followed from Galilee and from Judea.Hearing what he was doing,a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem,from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan,and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon.He told his disciples…

    Brad Bursa

  • Forty

    I turn forty today.  They say, “You’re middle age, Hope you didn’t waste your youth.” I do see years wasted.  I see moments missed.  I look back on regrets, mistakes, and sins. Yet I see more light than darkness, Dawn breaking on a dark horizon.  I see gifts, grace, and virtue.  I have hope for…

    Brad Bursa