We are pleased to present below all posts archived in 'April 2000'. If you still can't find what you are looking for, try using the search box.
There are so many haunting lines in the passion narratives. Who of us, for instance, is not stirred in the soul when the passion story is read in church and we come to the part where Jesus takes his last breath and there is that minute of silence, where we all drop to our knees?
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There's a remarkable expression in popular language that describes one of the most painful moments in Jesus' life, his "agony in the garden." The phrase describes his inner struggle the night before he died. That struggle and venue, the garden, are the ultimate desert and our response to what we do battle with there becomes our defining moment. We see this clearly in Jesus' life:
In her biography, The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day shares how, shortly after her conversion to Catholicism, she went through a painful, desert time. She had just given birth to her daughter and her decision to have the child baptized, coupled with her profession of faith, meant the end of her relationship with a man she deeply loved.
Christina Crawford once said: "Lost is a place too!" That's wise. Emptiness too can be a womb. Barrenness can be fertile. Desert flowers are often the most beautiful of all.