Jonathan Ryan's Blog, page 60

Good Friday Dark Devotional: The Day God Abandoned God

Matthew 27: 45-46 From noon onward,darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.And about three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”–which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” Growing up in Southern Indiana, I was a lonely kid. It’s not that my [Read More...]

Dark Devotional: Holy Thursday: Thy Uncomfortable Will Be Done

“The stage is set. The curtain rises. We are ready to begin.” Benedict Cumberbatch probably wasn’t thinking of Christianity when he recited those lines, yet his words are fitting on this first night of the Triduum. This was the night of the first Mass, the beautiful origin of washing your contemporaries’ feet, the great betrayal [Read More...]

Losing It: Colleen Mitchell Reads Seth Haines

I’ve been reading Seth Haines’s memoir Coming Clean, soaking up his call to make my way through pain to sobriety, toward God and away from the habits I use to numb the hard things. But the last couple of weeks have found me drunk on my own grief, fretful and anxious, trapped in a world [Read More...]

Entering the Story: The Imaginative Power of Traditional Worship

When my friendAmyconverted to Catholicism ten years ago, she wrote me a letter confessing thatshe wasn’t yet sure of her belief, but that she wanted to “enter the story.” She recognized in the massand the rhythm of the liturgical year that the Catholic churchhad established animaginative framework big enough to hold the entire Christian story, [Read More...]

The Dark Devotional: Retain Your Wounds

For the complete Mass readings for March 20, Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, click here. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shieldfrom buffets and spitting. (Isaiah 50) When we make our Lenten lists, we know the usual suspects. [Read More...]

St. Patrick, Five Songs and Three Books for a Pilgrimage (It Begins)

At 3:00 P.M. today, St. Patrick’s Feast Day (appropriate, considering he was a Sick Pilgrim himself), I start my pilgrimage west with my kids. I’ve always loved St. Patrick and the Irish peregrini (casting themselves off in a boat and letting God direct their location). But, also, its my eldest’s birthday, and he [Read More...]

Wanted: Spiritual Director for Two Sick Pilgrims

In my first post for this blog, I wrote that we weresetting up a soap boxand hoping some interesting people would show up.Boy, did you. Our traffic for the last two months caught us off guard. We’dassumed we’d be writing for ourselves here (though we secretly had modest dreams of speaking to four or five [Read More...]

The Things that are Saving Our Lives Right Now, March edition

“One must do things sometimes to make life more bearable.” –St. Teresa of Avila While I’m suspicious of gratitude projects and listicles make me twitch, I’ve found thatreading about the little things that keep other people’s heads above water makes me love my fellow humans a little more. As I type this, I can hear [Read More...]

Dear Pope Francis: A Theology Book for Adults

My three hooligans love Pope Francis. They begged me to take them to Philadelphia for the papal visit last September (I couldn’t, as it was a work trip). While I was there, they kept asking for pictures and videos. And, of course, they insisted that I bring them back something. While looking around, I [Read More...]

The Dark Devotional: Fifth Sunday in Lent: The Dust on Her Lips

Click here for the complete Mass readings for March 13, 2016 Remember not the events of the past,the things of long ago consider not;see, I am doing something new! (Isaiah 43) I don’t much likebeing toldnot to remember.To forget about the past and only look forward to what lies ahead. There’s the God who makes [Read More...]