Letters to a Future Saint: Foundations of Faith for the Spiritually Hungry

Sin is a turning away from God; it is missing the mark of giving God what God is due—namely, the whole of ourselves.

But if we unclench our fists, if we let go of our lives, if we confess that we are not our own, that we need and depend on God for life and for every other good thing—then, Jesus says, we will keep our lives, not only in this world but in the world to come.

Imagine God, if the comparison is not too much of a reach, as a bottle of champagne. What happens when you shake it up and pop off the cork? It explodes! It shoots out and up and everywhere. It runs over every which way. This is what creation is like. God is so full, so rich, so much that he simply runs over with being—and out come quarks and quack

You and I are made by God and for God. Our home is in God. We are beloved. We are dependent. We need God, every second of every day, if we are going to be happy or good, much less both. Very little is worth knowing more than this.

You exist because God made you, and God made you because he loves you.

God, we may say, sings us into being. He breathes forth a poem, and the poem is us: galaxies, planets, molecules, continents, animals, people. It is a beautiful poem, a glorious song, and somehow we are alive and in the middle of it.

I described the role of a priest as standing between God and the people, representing each to the other. A prophet does this, too, but in terms of speech: what the people have to say to God and what God has to say to the people. When a priest stands in the gap, it isn’t about words. It’s about sin. Sin and sacrifice.

In everything that makes a human community human, Israel’s election as God’s people should shine in their lives like neon lights.

Israel is the moon to God’s sun, reflecting the divine light to a world blanketed in darkness.