Each moment of our living brings us closer to our dying. Young or old, the knowledge of life’s end is with us, growing more real, more familiar through the experiences of time and of loss. Yet what is to keep us from frittering away what time is left to us, Making it almost a matter of...

(adapted from the original) If, on a starlit night, with the moon brightly shimmering, We stay inside and do not venture out, the evening universe remains a part of life we shall not know....

A religion that promises a life without tension, a life without conflict, a life without suffering, is a religion of passivity, a religion of mediocrity, a religion of insignificance. Everything worth doing in the world is a desperate gamble, a game of chance, where nothing is certain. What is love?

Like those shepherds who were on the hillsides with their flocks, like those wise ones in their observatories with their telescopes and astronomical charts, we find our daily work interrupted by these holidays. Like them, we can’t keep on working, we have to listen to singing angels, we have to...

In order to get out I must go through. There is no other way. No other way? But there must be another way, an easier path, a well-lit road. I cast about, scan the horizon— No other way. The way out is the way through. The way through is the way hard....

They had no idea where they were going, when they left that night, in the dark, without lights, without shoes, without bread, their children smothered against them so they would make no noise....

Keeper of our journeys, Today we mark and celebrate a significant moment in the lives of these young people Who this year assume the responsibility of becoming licensed drivers. We ask that they might be gifted with wisdom to make good choices as they navigate the roads ahead....