Tag Archives: Love

Of Love and Empathy

What is love, and is it related to empathy? Can a person feel empathy if they do not feel love? Can I love a person if I do not empathize with them? Great philosophers have written great books about such … Continue reading

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Reflections on Erich Fromm, “The Art of Loving”

For Erich Fromm (1900-1980), the German-American psychologist, love is active power, where one preserves one’s own integrity. Love helps overcome separation and anxiety, stimulates union. Love is part of a need to know, to know someone else or self. It … Continue reading

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Image of God

Many years ago I wrote this poem after the birth of my third son. It is particularly appropriate during this season of advent; the poem can easily be applied to the Christ child. Image of God Sheltered in warmth, Cocooned … Continue reading

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Love and Compassion

Buddhists call it compassion, This love that we have within, A love that is in fashion, Intuits when we begin, A house with many mansions, A place without sin. A place where fly the fairies, Those beings swift as the … Continue reading

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Christianity and Independence Day

Independence Day in America is a secular holiday celebrating freedom with picnics, fireworks, parades, and the proud display of the American flag. For Christians, Independence Day means even more, for by the signing of the Declaration of Independence a series … Continue reading

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Christianity and Labor Day: Why Work Matters

Americans first celebrated Labor Day in the 1880s during the height of the Industrial Revolution in America when immigrants were coming to America to fill the growing number of low-paying jobs in factories in American cities. The founders of Labor … Continue reading

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Bartholomew de Las Casas: Missionary Advocate for the Indigenous People of New Spain

When in 2016 Pope Francis visited Chiapas, Mexico, to demand rights for the indigenous people of Mexico, he was on familiar ground for champions of indigenous rights. Four hundred and eighty-one years earlier, in 1544, one of the great champions … Continue reading

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The Theology of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory in Joseph Razinger’s (Pope Benedict XVI’s) book Eschatology

What happens when we die? Roman Catholics have death ever on the mind. It is part of Christian theology, to follow the commandments and sacraments so to be prepared when death comes. But then, why do we still fear death? … Continue reading

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Thomas Merton and the Great Commission

Thomas Merton spent his life contemplating his purpose in the world, trying to discern how his desires and ambitions fit God’s plan. Born in France in 1915, Merton was well-traveled, a convert to Catholicism, and by his own admission was … Continue reading

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Dorothy Day and The Catholic Worker

Dorothy Day was a lay missionary. She was not a member of a religious order (although she did become a Benedictine oblate), rather she was a convert to Catholicism who completely embraced the religion to guide her everyday existence according … Continue reading

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