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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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Altar of Insomnia: The Transformative Power of Grace (Lectio Divina)
Robert Van Valkenburgh traces the arc from childhood hyper-vigilance to a 4 a.m. moment of insomnia — where the altar of self-made atonement becomes, by grace, the place of surrender. Drawing on St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s bold declaration that she fears only one thing — keeping her own will — this Lectio Divina asks…
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I Do: On Loving God With Everything You Cannot Give (Lectio Divina)
What does it mean to love God when your very capacity to love him is a gift he gave you? In this Lectio Divina reflection, Robert Van Valkenburgh draws on Thérèse of Lisieux’s Act of Oblation to Merciful Love — her prayer that the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within God might overflow…
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Not the Final Word: On Suffering, Brokenness, and Grace (Lectio Divina)
Some days — some weeks, months, and years — we are going to be beaten down by the world’s brokenness. Suffering is real, brokenness is real, and the pain we carry can feel like our ultimate reality. And yet, in silence and stillness, something more real than our suffering is revealed. Drawing on St.…
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A Life Dedicated to the Lord: Sabbath, Surrender, and the Little Way (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on Thérèse of Lisieux’s insight that God asks only for surrender and gratitude, this Lectio Divina explores what it means to practice Sabbath not as a single day but as a disposition of the whole life — a perpetual yes to God’s love, learned slowly, in faith and through grace.
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It’s Not Fair: On Grievance, the Cross, and the Debt We Could Not Pay (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on Thérèse of Lisieux, the parable of the unforgiving servant, and the theology of kenosis, this Holy Week Lectio Divina reflects on the spiritual danger of nursing grievances — and on the cross as the horizon that recontextualizes everything we think we are owed.