Michael Leach

The Surrender Novena can be helpful for those living with unbearable grief, but also for those just navigating the inevitable troubles that sweep through our daily lives.

We are all "The Great Pretender," writes Michael Leach. But that doesn't have to be the end of our story.

Soul Seeing: If each of us is a manifestation of divine Love, Michael Leach writes, then isn't a loving, sensual relationship an expression of Love giving Love back to Love? 

The greatest Jesus movie has never been made because it has no beginning and no ending. It is much more than a historical recreating of Jesus of Nazareth's life.

We find ourselves stumbling in a dualistic world of unconditional caring and uncommon cruelty. How am I supposed to understand all this? Maybe it's as simple as just opening the door when our neighbor knocks.

Michael Leach shares his journey of grief with readers, knowing that many are suffering through the same process and offering a hand to hold at the crossroad of hope and despair.

My soulmate since first we met at Your Father's Mustache tavern 54 years ago, Vickie died just the way she wanted to. At home. With loved ones at her side.

Troubling thoughts? Try Romans 12:2: "Let God transform you into a new person by letting God change the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."

Soul Seeing: In Christ, I am part of you and you are part of me and we are really one, indivisible and interdependent. What could be simpler, and more profound?

Soul Seeing columns are about looking at what is in front of our eyes and seeing what God has put in our eyes: love, mercy, goodness, beauty, grace, harmony, humility, compassion, gratitude, joy, peace, wisdom, salvation. Soul Seeing writers contemplate those moments when, without searching, they beheld something extraordinary in the ordinary.

Soul Seeing: On July 25, Catholics will celebrate the elderly. We grandparents will express gratitude for the gift of our grandchildren. After all, they give us the same gift we give them: the joy in knowing that we are an unadulterated delight.

Soul Seeing: To paraphrase Gale Sayers at the end of "Brian's Song" — "I love Gerard Manley Hopkins and I'd like all of you to love him, too." Especially this Christmastime. First, let me introduce you.

Soul Seeing: Jesus, I want to love like you do, but I need more wisdom and grace to forgive Donald Trump. How do I forgive someone I don't even know but who drives me nuts every time I see him boast and lie and cheat?

Soul Seeing: At a time when we thought the idea of Oneness was rising in consciousness, the original sin of thinking we're better off apart from God and each other is crying for dominion, an idea that brings only decay and death in its wake.

The death of Antoinette "Toni" Bosco at age 91 on March 20 went unnoticed by most of the Catholic press and virtually all of the general press, even though she was one of the most prolific and among the most influential, Catholic writers of her generation.

Soul Seeing: Ever since Vickie was diagnosed with Alzheimer's 17 years ago, I've been learning to live in a kind of timelessness, where there is "no play of passing shadows" (James 1:17). Time flies, slows, breaks things down. Timelessness stands still, brings peace, gratitude and assurance.

Appreciation: Fr. John Smyth was to Maryville Academy what Fr. Edward Flanagan was to Boys Town, and to disadvantaged families from Chicago what Mother Teresa was to those written off by society in Kolkata. 

Soul Seeing: Miracles come to everyone, but we're so preoccupied with thoughts of what we want and how we want it and when we want it that we don't recognize them. They may as well never have happened.

Soul Seeing: Players in the Christmas story stood on the mountain of a table or made their way to Bethlehem by following the light from the star atop the tree.

Soul Seeing: On Sunday, Aug. 19, Morrie, my classmate from Mundelein Seminary, announced to his congregation that he had submitted a letter of resignation to Pope Francis.