Deacon James Keating

About Deacon James Keating

Deacon James Keating, PhD, is a professor of spiritual theology at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

Healed, Mystic, Teacher: Seminary Spiritual Formation

Go to Part I “Spiritual formation is directed at nourishing and sustaining communion with God . . . This intimate relationship forms the heart of the seminarian in that sacrificial love that marks the beginning of pastoral charity.”[1. Na … [Read more...]

Vir Catholicus: Seminary Formation in Affective Maturity

The Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, written in 1992, was a major gift to priestly formation from Pope St. John Paul II. Most fundamentally, it was an encouragement to all involved in priestly formation to take seriously the human … [Read more...]

Boredom, Ordinary Time, and God’s Gift of Himself

It is routine to hear people good-heartedly mock the reasonableness of the Church’s liturgical calendar “celebrating” “Ordinary Time.” To celebrate ordinariness is a true curiosity within Western culture, because its members routinely seek e … [Read more...]

Real Celibacy Is an Invitation from Divine Beauty

The personal call of Christ to follow him in a life of chaste celibacy brings a seminarian into a suffering that involves his whole person. Seminary formation serves such a man by assisting him to integrate chastity within his body. Such … [Read more...]

Homilies for June 2016

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time—June 5, 2013  Readings: 1 Kgs 17:17-24; Ps 30:5-6, 11, 12, 13; 2 Gal 1:11-14A, 15AC, 16A, 17, 19; Lk 7:11-17. http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/060516.cfm The accounts today from our Gospel, and 1 Kin … [Read more...]

Vulnerability as a Place of Divine Encounter

God acts only for the good. God acts only to share himself as Love, namely, Jesus Christ. The human person is invited to respond to this revelation of love with his own vulnerability; he is invited to allow God to act in his being. In … [Read more...]

Giving Our Grief over to the “Man Acquainted with Grief”

With the coming of Christ into the depths of all things human, we now know that even our grief can be given over to the good God ... All losses can become places of life, places of intimacy with Christ, if we show him these wounds caused by … [Read more...]

Imagination, Prayer, and the Spousal Gift

In and through Christ’s Spirit, St. Joseph stands ready to assist any priest in going to Mary, thus concretizing the priest’s own spousal identity.   In this essay, I will explore the identity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in her powerful rol … [Read more...]

The Heart of Hope

Since Christians are called to be Christ in the world ... we have to allow Christ’s Spirit to embrace suffering in love within us, for without his Spirit abiding within us, we would never have the strength to suffer out of love.   Many of … [Read more...]

Growing in Love of the Lay Life: Evangelizing Martyrs

The Catholic laity are asked to give witness to Christ by way of obedience to objective truth. It takes a mind formed by love itself, Christ, to have the courage to preach the Gospel of Life. The nature of priesthood invites a man to … [Read more...]

Pastoral Authority and Spiritual Warfare

In sharing in the priesthood of Christ, the pastor upholds his own fatherhood (governing), receives his teaching authority, and can uphold his own ministry of healing and holiness (sanctifying).

“Draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the p … [Read more...]