To prevent us from mistaking “baby steps” for “end stages” in our pursuit of Christian maturity, let us turn to the wise counsel found in a famous work by Saint Bonaventure (1217-1274) on “The Six Wings of the Seraph.” In this spiritual classic, he details six essential dispositions of the heart that enable us to move from lukewarm modes of Christian living to lasting expressions of an interior life modeled on Christ himself. The six “wings” that characterize our commitment to grow in...

In this pleasure-seeking, functionalistic world of ours, appreciating our true worth in God’s eyes may remain either underdeveloped or overwhelmed by the need for measurable success. In either case, it may be impossible for us to fill the “hole” in our heart that belongs to God alone. Each turning point in life—from youth to young adulthood, from middle to old age—can be seen as an occasion to remain complacent or as an invitation to renew our faith journey and to reclaim our true worth in...

Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town invites its viewers to find the value, above any price, of the smallest event in daily life. Emily, having just died, asks for and receives permission to return to her twelfth birthday. As she relives these happy hours, she experiences the anguish of seeing how she and her family, basically loving yet typically human and forgetful, fail to really “look at one another.” This sad fact causes Emily to beg to be taken back “up the hill” to her grave before the day...