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I Cannot Have You Without You: On Longing, Powerlessness, and the Prayer Beyond Prayer (Lectio Divina)
Karl Rahner names it plainly: to present your life before God as a single prayer is completely beyond your strength. This post begins there — with a soul that has tasted divine presence, cannot unknow it, and cannot manufacture it again. The Meditatio moves through the full weight of that paradox: the insatiable thirst…
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When the Dead Remain: On Grief, Friendship, and the Communion of Saints (Lectio Divina)
Some losses arrive quietly — not as rupture, but as presence. In this Lectio Divina, Robert Van Valkenburgh reflects on the memory of a dear friend who died last year: a man who introduced him to Catholicism more than twenty-five years ago and whose silent faithfulness he is only now able to see and…
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Did Not Our Hearts Burn: The Many Faces Of God (Lectio Divina)
Where does God meet us? Not only in the dramatic moments of Scripture — wrestling with Jacob at the ford of the Jabbok, speaking to Moses from a burning bush, leading Israel through the wilderness — but in the ordinary movements of our days. In this Lectio Divina reflection, Robert Van Valkenburgh draws on…
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The Wounds of Resurrection: Apertures of Love (Lectio Divina)
What does love actually cost us — and what did it cost Jesus? This Lectio Divina begins with an honest reckoning: love makes us emotionally porous, permeable to another’s suffering and vulnerable to our own grief at the prospect of loss. It gives meaning to our lives and makes the journey navigable, but it…