Collected here are articles and reviews that have appeared in print, as well as a presentation of my books. There are a few interviews and some sound material, notably my reading of the Gospels in Greek, a project that remains work in progress.
Easter proclaims that what we think of as defining our lives — transience, death, any number of wounds — is not, in fact, final; that there is a balm in Gilead healing us now and effectively obliterating all that seems to sabotage joy. We find ourselves stepping into a wholly new dimension of being, if we’ve the guts for it, and the love.
Continue reading It is curious: our intensely body-conscious society in fact takes the body lightly, refusing to see it as significant of identity, supposing that the only selfhood of consequence is the one produced by subjective self-perception, as we construct ourselves in our own image.
Continue reading A conversation held during the New York Encounter touching on the state of the Church, Kafka, Ildefonso Schuster, the signs of the times, gratitude, and the call to holiness.
Continue reading Connectedness is, in my way of thinking, not necessarily positive - one can be connected to a leash, a chain, or a mobile gadget. Belonging on the other hand is dynamic, in movement, an indicator of shared purpose.
Continue reading Easter is the assurance that all the things that condition our lives negatively — sin, disease, enmity, hatred, warfare, mortality — all those things have been overcome, and can still be overcome, insofar as we conduct our lives in Christ and let ourselves be formed by Christian hope.
Continue reading What does it feel like to be created in the image of God? How do we experience it?
Continue reading He, born on Holy Saturday, had once for all anchored his life in the power of Jesus's passion, death, and resurrection. Anyone who has seen him celebrate the sacred mysteries knows how really present this power was for him.
Continue reading At Mass we take part in Christ’s saving sacrifice; we witness the influx of eternity in time; we touch the foundation of the daring prayer the priest prays on our behalf when, in the chalice, he mixes water with wine: ‘May we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.’
Continue reading Be an anarchist this Advent! Don't give in to shopping hysteria.
Continue reading To be a member of the Church is to be a member of Christ. It is also to be a member of a community - we need to make that explicit.
Continue reading One way in which we can contribute constructively to online debate is by making it more reflective and thoughtful. Anyone who constantly shoots from the hip risks misfiring fatally.
Continue reading The law proposal isn't just about a specific ethical matter; it concerns the relationship between state and citizens.
Continue reading The law proposal comes across as a wrestling match with a shadow. Notwithstanding its repeated use of words such as 'protect', 'help, and 'support', it appears peculiarly technocratic and inhuman.
Continue reading ‘Anthropocentrism kills the Church and its life’. These are hard words, but words we need to hear, for we live in a self-centred world.
Continue reading A conversation about music, tradition, fatigue, the contemplative life, the building of community, well-balanced beer, and the time to say 'Enough'.
Continue reading In her correspondence we encounter Edith Stein as a spiritual mother profoundly open to the experiences and needs of those whom she carried in her prayers. To be a mother or a father is precisely about enabling the growth and maturing of others.
Continue reading The challenge of owning oneself as oneself, of making peace, not just with humanity in general, but with oneself as a human specimen, is the first major combat a novice encounters. Anyone who has essayed it knows it can be fierce.
Continue reading A conversation about Catholicism in Norway, about the key role of families in the life of the Church, and about the sense of a Christian call.
Continue reading 'I am struck by the emphasis you place on compassion – and I mean that in the literal sense of being involved in the pathos of another life, of being entangled in other lives, of each man not being an island, but a stitch in a delicate embroidery – an embroidery that will be forever imperfect if a single stitch is extracted'.
Continue reading Christian conversion will gradually take us to a point at which we can say, 'It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me'. At that point our own ego will no longer strike us as overwhelmingly interesting.
Continue reading A conversation about the website CoramFratribus, the importance of reading good literature, the helpfulness and limitations of social media, and the Church's insistence: 'Among the principal duties of bishops the preaching of the Gospel occupies an eminent place' (Lumen Gentium, 25). In Norwegian only.
Continue reading What will help me to be freed from my past in such a way that I can live prospectively, moving forward, while at the same time being reconciled with the past? What is the impact of beauty on our lives, and how can I know my deepest desire?
Continue reading A conversation with John Sjögren held at Bjärka Säby on 18 February, during the course of a symposium on monastic spirituality. We touch on matters of life and death, the vocation of the monk, the provocative nature of Christianity, the tears of God - and the music of Mahler.
Continue reading We have been saddened by recent statements from certain quarters of the Russian Church, which present this war of flagrant aggression as a combat for Christian values. To speak in such terms is to engage in mere rhetoric, to hold moral values hostage to a political agenda.
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