Emmaus Blog

Wednesday, September 9, 2026: In Praise of the Earth  by John O'Donohue Let us bless The imagination of the Earth. That knew early the patience To harness the mind of time, Waited for the seas to warm, Ready to welcome the emergence Of things dreaming of voyaging Among the stillness of land. And how light knew to nurse The growth until the face of the Earth Brightened beneath a vision of color. When the ages of ice came And sealed the Earth inside An endless coma of cold, The heart of the Earth held hope, Storing fragments of memory, Ready for the return of the sun. Let us thank the Earth That offers ground for home And holds our feet firm To walk in space open To infinite galaxies. Let us salute the silence And certainty of mountains: Their sublime stillness, Their dream-filled hearts. The wonder of a garden Trusting the first warmth of spring Until its black infinity of cells Becomes charged with dream; Then the silent, slow nurture Of the seed’s self, coaxing it To trust the act...

 Saturday, September 5, 2026: The Sacredness of Our Work By Matthew Fox When we do good work, we become midwives of grace and therefore priests in the fullest or archetypal sense of that word. Our work can be a way of bringing a sense of the sacred back to what is too often a flat and violent or uncaring world, one that is often out of touch with its own specialness and sacredness. The universe itself is busy, always busy, at doing its good work. It has been so for 13.8 billion years according to today’s science. We, our Earth and the creatures we share the Earth with, are recipients of this Great Work. Thomas Berry teaches that when a sense of the sacred has been lost, there is only one remedy: To rediscover the sacredness of the universe and our place in it. Can we recover this sense of the sacred? Is our work—for which we apprentice, go to school, struggle for years to be adept at— an avenue to the sacred? Along with the universe in which we live, move, have our being, and which...

Wednesday, September 2, 2026: Christian discipleship is by nature a very dangerous thing A Discipleship of Equals: If I am a child of God, a sister-in-Christ, and belong with all of you to the priesthood of all believers, then my job is to love, not hate, to be creative, not destructive, to follow Christ’s cross. -  Pauli Murray, To Speak a Defiant Word Speaking to the network Women’s Ordination Worldwide, Sister Joan Chittister evokes a vision of Christian discipleship that requires great courage: Christian discipleship is by nature a very dangerous thing. It has put every person who ever accepted it at risk. It made every follower who ever took it seriously on alert for rejection, from Martin of Tours to John Henry Newman, from Mary Ward to Dorothy Day. Discipleship casts every fragile new Christian community in tension with the times in which it grows.  In the early church to be a Christian community meant to defy Roman imperialism, to stretch Judaism itself, to counter pag...

 Tuesday, September 1, 2026 A Prayer for Racial Healing From Catholic Charities Spirit of justice, in your wisdom you create all people in your image, without exception. Through your goodness, open our eyes to see the dignity, beauty, and worth of every human being.  Open our minds to understand that all your children are brothers and sisters in the same human family.  Open our hearts to repent of racist attitudes, behaviors, and speech which demean others. Open our ears to hear the cries of those wounded by racial  discrimination, and their passionate appeals for change. Strengthen our resolve to make amends for past injustices and to right the wrongs of history. And fill us with courage that we might seek to heal wounds, build bridges, forgive and be forgiven, and establish peace and equality for all in our communities. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.  

 August 29, 2026:  "The Vatican and Women Deacons" by Phyllis Zagano I have to wonder: Had I and my all-girls Catholic high school peers seen a woman preaching the Gospel at Mass or presiding at baptisms and marriages, what impact might it have had on the formation of our faith? We will never know. Because, in Zagano's telling, members of Vatican commissions from the 1970s through the early 2000s were just personally not ready for that. In The Vatican and Women Deacons, Phyllis Zagano provides an account of the Vatican's engagement with the issue since the restoration of the permanent diaconate in 1967 and makes the case that the primary barrier to ordaining women deacons today is not theological, but cultural. Scholarship confirming the sacramental ordination of women deacons in the early church stretches back to the 17th century and has been consistently developed since that time. "It is the Church, not Jesus, which has established this ministry of service,...

Friday, August 28, 2026:  Community, forming bonds, listening and ritual: These have always been important to the church One Saturday a month, in a central Silicon Valley neighborhood, residents stop to read handmade signs taped to poles: "Misa del Barrio. ¡Todos son bienvenidos! Neighborhood Catholic Mass. You are very welcome."   These posters advertise outdoor pop-up Masses, known as Misas del Barrio, which pair the liturgy with community listening sessions.   "Community, forming bonds, ritual: These have always been important to the church," said Fr.  Rick Rodoni, pastor of the community's parish, St. Lucy. "At the Misas, we have the opportunity to listen to each other, to offer change and to express our faith in a neighborhood, where literally, at 9 a.m. in the morning, we're singing and praising the Lord in a parking lot." At residents' request, Masses are held in low-rise apartment parking spaces, where more than 50 folding chairs face a...