John 1 (NJB): So they said to him, ‘Who are you? We must take back an answer to those who sent us. What have you to say about yourself?’ So he said, ‘I am, as Isaiah prophesied: A voice of one that cries in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord. Make his paths straight’   Read More

Nicodemus Visiting Jesus at Night (1899, John 3:1-21) by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), found at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. John 3 (NJB): ‘In all truth I tell you, we speak only about what we know and witness only to what we have seen and yet you people reject our evidence. If you do not believe me when I speak to you about earthly things, how will you believe me when I speak to you ...  Read More

Dirck van Delen (1604/5-1671) – “Church Interior with the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican of Luke 18:9-14 (1653)”, in the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.   Read More

John 1:35-41. The painting/illustration by James Tissot remembers the call before the call of Jesus’ first disciples. What do we mean? Unlike other “callings” of disciples, these first two were not called by Jesus. Instead, they pursued Jesus as Jesus walked again along the bank of the Jordan River (see it there in the painting?), walking by the spot where on the previous day John had baptized Him.  Read More

Woman At the Well (esp. John 4:13-14) by Crystal Close - Oil on canvas; 36"x48"; 2016 “To Converse” The Oxford English Dictionary at “to converse” – 1. - 1340–1727 - † intransitive. To move about, have one's being, live, dwell in (on, upon) a place, among (with) people, etc. Obsolete.  Read More

One of the earliest “habits” of the Faber Institute (founded in October 2014) was The Night School of Deeper Learning (aka, “the Night School”) . I was asked this past week how I teach these classes, wondering whether I had a particular approach to communicating so much, at depth, in so short a period of time – only one hour. I replied to him then, but I have continued to think about his question.  Read More

“Our options [in a tremulous world], as they say, are no longer large. … [We] may choose to do nothing, which is to say, to go discreetly or wildly mad, letting fear possess us and frivolity rule our days. Or we may, along with admirable spirits like Deni...  Read More

Ron Hansen, Mariette in Ecstasy (1991) - And yet sometimes I am so sad. Even when I have friends over often for tea or canasta, there is a Great Silence here for weeks and weeks, and the Devil tells me that the years since age seventeen have been a great abeyance and I have been l...  Read More

Pope Francis, 1 February 2025 – And for us too, the experience of faith has been stimulated by encounters with people who have been able to change in life and have, so to speak, entered into God's dreams. For even though there is much evil in the world, we can distinguish who is different: their greatness, which often coincides with littleness, wins us over. … Dear brothers and sisters, from Mary Magdalene, whom tradition calls “the apostle of the apostles”, we learn hope. One enters the new world by converting more than once. Our journey is a constant invitation to change perspective. … Instead of looking into the darkness of the past, into the emptiness of a tomb, from Mary Magdalene we learn to turn towards life. There our Master awaits us. There our name is spoken. For in real life there is a place for us, always and everywhere.  Read More

Dan Fogelberg, “Leader of the Band” (1981): “His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (1945): “You cannot love a fellow creature fully till you love God.”  Read More

Jane Hirschfield, born in New York City (1953). “I don't think poetry is based just on poetry; it is based on a thoroughly lived life. And so, I couldn't just decide I was going to write no matter what; I first had to find out what it means to live.” Steve Jobs once said, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”  Read More

The Gospel chosen in the Catholic liturgical calendar for the first Sunday of Lent this year is this one from Luke, quoting here its opening lines. We should remember that “to tempt” has two meanings.  Read More