postmodernpilgrim

"The church is a whore, but she is my mother."  - attributed to St. Augustine Just finished reading Robert Coles' autobiography of Dorothy Day before I embark upon reading Day's own account of her life,  The Long Loneliness.   Coles transcribes tape recorded conversations he had with her before her death in 1980 along with historical information from other texts (including Loneliness and other works by and about Day) as well as his own observations about her life from a psychological perspective to provide the content for the book.  The result is an engaging introspection of Day as she reflects on her life and the impact that it made on the spiritual and political landscape of twentieth-century America.   In the chapter entitled "The Church Obeyed and Challenged", Coles engages Day regarding her choice to become Catholic and the struggle between her own spirituality, sense of social justice, and the often dogmatic and hierarchical nature of the Roman Catholi...

Driving behind a truck today that had a window decal that read "Jesus is Whatever You Need."  At first I thought, "Well that is one way to look at it."  But then, as my morning went on, it continued to play over and over again in my head.  This decal that I wanted to quickly dismiss would not get out of my head.  I wanted to dismiss it because I supposed it was saying that Jesus is whatever you want Jesus to be, a kind of turn on the gospel of prosperity or the gospel of me.  But I began to think that there might be some validity to what it says.  It doesn't say Jesus is whatever you want , it says need.   There is a chasm of difference between want and need.   I would venture a guess from watching TV and reading the newspaper that it seems the world wants a Jesus who pats us on the back and tells us everything is alright we have more than most, that the world really centers solely upon us and our needs while supplying us with anything our heart desires.  Jesus ...