Author: Teresa Berger
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Mass: A Moment of Deep Betrayal
As the world faces yet another damning report of Catholic clergy sexual abuse of minors, I return once again to an intrinsic link between the Eucharist and betrayal that first comforted me some years ago.
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October 4, 2021: Feast of St. Francis of Assisi
The time is now to situate Christian worship within the much older, more ancient practice of primordial praise.
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Holy Water — Contactless
I have really, really missed the regular availability of holy water. I was therefore glad – as well as somewhat bemused — to find a COVID-attentive holy water dispenser when I went to Mass earlier today, in a Gothic Cathedral no less.
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The Annunciation of the Lord: And Became Water?
But even more than God becoming human and 78% H2O as a newborn, the Incarnation is also about God becoming cosmic dust, and about God becoming genetic kin to all that is, since humans share with all that exists on planet earth a common genetic ancestry.
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March 3, 2021: Celebrating 1,700 Years of Sundays “Off”
Sunday for us must be more than a private, leisure-filled, home-spa kind of day. Rather, the holy day of Sunday really is about a radical de-centering of the self, for the sake of re-centering ourselves on the One who alone is Holy
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Ash Wednesday: Remember You Are Stardust
If remembering the end of our life is one part of these words, contemplating its beginning is the other; we return to what we have always been, so Genesis claims, namely dust. Stardust, actually…
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Anna, the Prophet, and Her “Censored Pulpit”
Depictions of Anna in Christian visual art have made up for some of this censoring over the centuries, by letting Anna speak through hand gestures, or by giving her a message to proclaim via words written on a scroll she is holding.
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A Queen at the Christmas Crèche
At the end of this year of racial reckoning, with far too many images of black bodies killed, there was something moving in seeing the Queen of Sheba — an African woman, tall and proud — walk toward the Christ child bringing her extravagant gifts.
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A “Madonna amidst the Ruins,” the COVID-year 2020 included
For survivors of the bombings of the city and of World War II more generally, this Mary seemed to hold a message: She was in their midst, one of them, a survivor of unimaginable horror, and still cradling badly damaged life. Divine life.