Book Recommendation: Places of Light

This book was written by two people I met while on a pilgrimage to Paris-Chartres in 2015.

Places of Light: The Gift of Cathedrals to the World

Embark on a pilgrimage through the great cathedrals of the world.

Gernot Candolini and Jennifer Brandon invite readers to experience some of the exemplary cathedrals of Europe and North America, with beautiful images and poetic, descriptive texts that inspire and inform. They offer glimpses into the spiritual, visionary, and artistic beauty and mastery of these spaces, inspired by God and built by human hands.

Read the powerful stories connected to these sacred spaces: like the reconciliation crusade of Vezelay, the destruction of Cluny, and the origins of Sagrada Familia. Explore the architectural and artistic elements that make these churches what they are: the power of light, the “smiling stones,” the crypt, the music, and more.

More Recommendations:

• Guide to Advent
• Daily Meditation
• Book Recommendations

Advent Day 01: A Sacred Season …

Christmas is a swiftly moving season with few clear boundaries. The day after we’ve packed up our Halloween costumes, Hallmark Channel begins nearly two months of twenty-four-seven presentations of Christmas movies. Shortly thereafter, we are inundated with ads inviting us to shop early to get the best bargains. The holiday rush is in full swing by Thanksgiving with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales abounding, and People jostling one another to be 1st to purchase the latest must have Christmas presents. Radio stations begin playing Christmas songs on Thanksgiving Day.

In the fifty-five days from All Saints’ day to Christmas Day, we prepare for Christ coming through online shopping, bargain hunting, photos with Santa coma songs and carols, baking, drinking, and revelling. Despite wars and rumors of war, poverty, addiction, and homelessness, Christmas magic is in the air! That often in the magic we miss the sacredness of the season, the holy time and space of pregnancy, birth, and revelation.

Courage Is Fear Walking …

We want life to be as dazzling and painless as possible. Life, on the other hand, has a way of humbling us, and heartbreak is built into its agreement with the world. We’re young, until we’re not. We’re healthy, until we’re not. We’re with those we love, until we’re not. Life’s beauty is inseparable from its fragility. One of the greatest human triumphs is to choose to make room in our hearts for both the joy and the pain, and to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This means seeing feelings not as being “good” or “bad” but as just “being.” Yes, there is this relentless assumption in our culture that we need to do something when we have inner turmoil. We must struggle with it, fix it, control it, exert brute-force willpower over it, remain positive. What we really need to do, though, is also what is most simple and obvious: nothing. That is, to just welcome these inner experiences, breathe into them, and learn their contours without racing for the exits.

In Memoriam: Mary Oliver …

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her poetry often explored nature and the spiritual world. She died on Thursday, January 17, 2019 at her home in Florida.

We celebrate her life with deep gratitude for the remarkable human being she was and how she used words to witness, awaken and heal the world. A bight light is gone from our sky but her poetry and wisdom remain as a gift to humanity for generations to come. Rest in beauty and peace …

ILLUMINATED 2018 …

In gratitude for all the blessing prayers that I frequently post on In Silence Waits, I am sharing information about an advent retreat that Jan Richardson is offering from December 1, 2018 to December 28, 2018.

Retreat Details

ILLUMINATED 2018 is an elegantly simple online journey toward Christmas that you can enter into from anywhere you are, in the way that works best for you.

This online retreat is not about adding one more thing to your holiday schedule. It is about helping you find spaces for reflection that draw you deep into this season that shimmers with mystery and possibility.

Building a Bridge (Book Recommendation) …

Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity

The New York Times bestselling author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and Jesus: A Pilgrimage turns his attention to the relationship between LGBT Catholics and the Church in this loving, inclusive, and revolutionary book.

Best Books of 2016 …

The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New by Annie Dillard

In recognition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s long and lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection, including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work, rigorously curated by the author herself.