passion on Empathy

When the great theologian Jürgen Moltmann was sixteen years old in 1943, he was drafted into the German army and was soon captured by the Allied forces. He wound up in a prisoner of war camp in Scotla...

I recently had lunch with a former British boarding school chaplain. He remembers being with the boys in his school the morning thirty years ago that the very first pictures of widespread starvation i...

Hope is passion for what is possible.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spiri...

As any parent of small children will tell you, children have an amazingly acute sense of justice. Even the most fractional disparity in the distribution of the most trivial family good will be met wit...

Suffering is nothing by itself. But suffering shared with the passion of Christ is a wonderful gift, the most beautiful gift, a token of love.

I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.

Lack of interest in mission is not fundamentally caused by an absence of compassion or commitment, nor by lack of information or exhortation. And lack of interest in mission is not remedied by more sh...

One of the real problems in modern life is that people who are good at being civil lack strong convictions and people who have strong convictions lack civility.

Loving, good, and kind God, you sent your Son to endure the cross so that we might know you. You desire a relationship with us, and you are interested in the condition of our hearts. Too often our hea...

God of justice, you repeatedly call us to action, but we so often fail to respond. Your word convicts us, demonstrating that inaction is just as sinful as the wrong actions. Lord of mercy, forgive us ...

Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion ...

The missionary doctor Albert Schweitzer wrote in his memoir, “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should...

A wealthy Dutch collector was searching for a rare diamond to complete his collection. When a renowned New York dealer located the perfect stone, he invited the man to come see it in person. The Du...

Gracious God, you have called us to be a unified body, working together that which you have willed for the world. In our apathy, we fail to participate in the work you have called us to do. In our div...

In June 2024, I (A. J.) had the opportunity to visit the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, Oregon, to meet with a group of inmates who had read one of my recent books. The experience was...

Let all your thoughts be with the Most High, and direct your humble prayers unceasingly to Christ. If you cannot contemplate high and heavenly things, take refuge in the Passion of Christ, and love to...

A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke”

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world. Have mercy on us. O Christ, in your humility, your lonely struggle and your agony, you share our suffering. Give us faith to trust your grace....

I was invited to visit a friend who was very sick. He was a man about fifty-three years old who had lived a very active, useful, faithful, creative life. Actually, he was a social activist who had car...

Passion creates, addiction consumes.”

Reflection The television series Alone follows ten individuals who are left to fend for themselves and by themselves in the wilderness. Now, these aren’t everyday individuals plucked from Main St...

Almighty God, we settle for false peace. We see no need to rock the boat, so we allow injustice to rule and reign. God, give us the conviction to take on the work of peacemaking. Give us the courage, ...

Amazed, bewildered, they are gathered around him, whose pondered resolution comes to rest, withdrawing him from all the ties that bound him--a stranger gliding by with thoughts unguessed. He feels tha...

Our mission is the mission of Jesus Christ.  He lived as an ordinary human being. We will care for the common life of humanity. He served men and women. We are committed to working for human wel...

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

The story of Passion-Tide and Easter is the story of the winning of that freedom and of that victory over the evils of Time. The burden of the guilt is accepted (“He was made Sin”), the last agony of ...

Just this morning, my family attended church with our son who has autism. He was particularly enthused by the music today, and he was moving around quite a bit. A man in the choir noticed our son, and...

The early church fathers named the primary sin patterns “passions,” borrowing a Latin term that could also be translated “sufferings ” As we live out a unique pattern or “face” of sin, we begin to thi...