Jonathan Ryan's Blog, page 15

What I Learned from Dating a Catholic Priest: Part 2

  In March, we took a few weeks off from being in communication. He said he needed time to sort things out. The plan was to be together in June. He would begin his leave of absence then.    I gave up alcohol for lent that year. My emotions were so raw I knew I […]

Toni Morrison and the White Blindness of First Things

First Things has published an attempted takedown of the late Toni Morrison’s faith and writing, and it’s a breathtaking example of white people missing the point. Senior editor Julia Yost, apparently weary of seeing tributes to and eulogies for the black woman who was arguably America’s greatest living writer–and a Catholic convert–accuses Toni Morrison, who died August […]

Dark Devotional: Let the Dead Bury Their Dead

We don’t like to admit it, but the demands of love are changeable. Different situations and different people call for different responses. This is obvious, but it’s also challenging. Love requires us to live with uncertainty and ambiguity. We don’t always know the right things to do or the right ways to love. It is so much easier to […]

Dark Devotional: The Intimacy of Communion

  As Catholics, we take it for granted that the One, the Be All, End All, Beginning and End of every breath, the Alpha and Omega, is the bit of food we grind between our teeth. Willing, He allows us to salivate over him; to swallow Him; to be digested and become one with us. […]

Dark Devotional: A Pentecost Meditation for the Anxious, the Pregnant, and the Judgy

  I do not feel filled with the Holy Spirit right now, I’ll admit. I’m 40 weeks pregnant (due date was yesterday), and all of a sudden, half the family is sick, including my husband and birth partner. It’s a holiday weekend as I write this (on the computer my sick husband just used); my […]

Making Space for “Yes”

  “The great wisdom teachers and mystics say in various ways that you cannot truly see or understand anything if you begin with a no.” Richard Rohr, The Sacred Now My husband, a lapsed Catholic who began attending church again once we had small children, describes his entrance into ministry as beginning with “yes.” One […]

Dark Devotional: A Prayer for Peace

  “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” ~ John 14:27   I remember this Scripture in the form of a song from my childhood, “I have the peace […]

Dark Devotional: By This Shall All Men Know You

  John 13:35 By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. In this age of social media vitriol, where everyone is vying to be RIGHT, it might be hard to recognize what it is to love one another. It looks like this: Every night, there […]

Dark Devotional: What the Good Shepherd Teaches Us about Parables

Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s […]

Dark Devotional: Jesus and Awkward Questions about Intimacy

Post-Resurrection, Jesus shows up in some unexpected ways. He takes a stroll with his disciples on the path to Emmaus. He appears to Mary Magdalene as a gardener. In this week’s Gospel, Jesus arrives at the Sea of Tiberias, helps his disciples catch some fish, and eats an early morning breakfast with them. We’re supposed […]