New Format - Same Great Content!

For the past two years people have come to know this blog as "Notes from the Tower:  Musings on Church live from the chancellor of a diocese."  That title is no longer applicable, since I am no longer the chancellor of a diocese.

I am now the Director of the Office for Peace and Justice for the Archdiocese of Chicago.  This represents a return to full time social justice work, a ministry that is very dear to me and many others. 

So, this blog needs to reflect the new realities of my own life, and as such some of the content will be new, some of it will remain the same.  I will continue to post blog posts on scripture reflections for Sundays and other feasts.  However, the blog will also deal with Catholic social teaching and its application to present situations and experiences. 

Every aspect of Christian life needs to begin with the inner experience of God.  St. Paul tells us that we human beings are composed of spirit, soul, and body.  Richard Gula points out that this biblical notion of the human person enables us to grasp the proper orientation we should have to the world.  If the spirit is the place within us where God dwells, the soul then is the place where we discern the promptings of God and decide how to appropriate that prompting in our bodies.  Once that discernment has taken place, then we move to direct, external actions that manifest themselves to the world in our bodily actions.

So, the spiritual life is the foundation of everything we do as Christians.  Reflection on the word of God and discernment of God's voice within is the beginning of our work in social justice.  The blog, then, will strive to help us be faithful to the words of Paul:  "Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds, so that you may know what is God's will - what is good, pleasing, and perfect."  And, hopefully, such discernment will lead to positive action in the word so that together we might fully arrive at the reign of God.