Sep 3, 2012 | Religion / Spirituality
There are some who go through life without the need for God, for symbols, rituals, or traditions and suggest to others that we each make our own way through life’s passages. I listened to a woman on the radio recalling the suffering she experienced with the death of a...
Sep 2, 2012 | Religion / Spirituality
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini died Friday, August 31, 2012. He was 85. If it were not for his obituary I would never have known of this remarkable man. He was a Jesuit and former archbishop of the archdiocese of Milan. He was also rare in the Catholic world...
Aug 29, 2012 | Religion / Spirituality
My work as a chaplain at Toronto General Hospital included caring for those waiting for heart transplants. Some waited for many months. Everything that they did or ate was recorded, even the number of grapes because they contain fluid and fluid intake had to be...
Aug 20, 2012 | Religion / Spirituality
Feeling the presence of God is emotional, ethereal, ephemeral. We cannot touch that feeling. It is through symbols and rituals that we can transform an emotional feeling into a physical one. All of those feelings are brought together when donning the prayer...
Aug 2, 2012 | Religion / Spirituality
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes about sacred time –the Sabbath. His book is uplifting. His prose speaks to the heart and soul. Rabbi Heschel teaches us that things are not sacred in the same way that time is sacred. He exhorts us to remember the Sabbath. It is a...
Jul 30, 2012 | Religion / Spirituality
The first time I was asked that question, I was in the middle of my residency in clinical pastoral education at Toronto Hospital. I think that was the first time I ever put thought to the feeling. I believe in God because I can’t imagine life without that belief....
