A New Approach for Pastoral Ministry

Incorporating Biblical Creation Imagery and Apocalyptic Metaphors into Pastoral Care and Ministry

Biblical theology of creation is applicable in pastoral ministry, because of its rich cornucopia of imagery and metaphors of myth and apocalypse, imagination and paradoxes employed in demonstrating God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and o … [Read more...]

Prayer as the Gateway to Mystery

For a Christian, mystery is reverenced as that hidden dimension in things, people, situations and life which is beyond time, place or physical description. We may understand aspects of this esoteric reality beyond us and we can appreciate … [Read more...]

Images of God’s Temple in Salvation History

Its Fulfillment in Christ

Four thousand years ago God promised Abraham that through his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Implicitly this promise guaranteed a redeeming sacrifice for all mankind. In a reply to his son, Isaac, Abraham had uttered … [Read more...]

Cultivating Time for Eternity

Ecology, Exceptionalism, and Apocalypse

The importance of ecology is no longer disputed. We must listen to the language of nature and we must answer accordingly. Yet I would like to underline a point that seems to me to be neglected, today as in the past: there is also an ecology … [Read more...]

Father John Navone, S.J.

His obituary plus two of his articles.

Fr. John "Jack" Navone, S.J., died on Christmas Day 2016. He was one of our regular contributors, and will be missed by all of us at HPR, and those who faithfully followed his thoughtful essays. May he rest in peace! We are including two … [Read more...]

Questions Answered

Question: At the Easter vigil, we read from Genesis that God, on the fourth day, created and separated light from darkness: on the fourth day, he created the sources of light. So, from whence comes the light of the first day? Answer: No … [Read more...]

An Anthropology of Gaudium et Spes

The radical originality of God: When God created man, male and female, “He established Himself” as the “un-originate origin” of the diversity of the sexes. Part I of II In Part I of this essay (Part II is here), there is an examination o … [Read more...]

The Nativity of Christ

Its Historic Reality

In those days, Caesar Augustus published a decree ordering a census of the whole world. This first took place when Quirinius was the governor of Syria. Everyone went to register, each to his own town. And so Joseph went from his own town of … [Read more...]

John Paul II’s “Triptych” of the Human Person

This article focuses on the first part of Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body which broadens the vision of humanity from not just this life (historical man), but to what God intended for man before the Fall (original man), as well as w … [Read more...]

John Paul II, Christian Anthropology, and “Familiaris Consortio”

John Paul II called humanity to rediscover an anthropology based in the beauty and dignity of human life, laying its foundation firmly in Sacred Scripture and Church Tradition.   The beatification of Pope John Paul II serves as a … [Read more...]

Living as a creature

Editorial for February 2012

The Bible begins with the solemn words, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).   The Nicene Creed, which we pray at every Sunday Mass, begins: “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and ear … [Read more...]