faith blog – Page 2 – Spiritual accompaniment

Advent and Christmas: Being Present to One Another

December 23, 2025

I visited a friend yesterday. She’s terminally ill and is aware that “this is probably her last Christmas.” She and I have a storied bond. Our mothers were friends since they were four years old. Then, our mothers brought her and I into the world three days apart. Now that she’s entering the final phase of her life, I’ve thought of something said two or three years ago by another friend – a triplet (two identical sisters and a third fraternal sister). One of the identicals was dying, the other identical said “I don’t know how to do this” (i.e., how to be “alone” – she’s never “not had” her identical). In my own measured way, I understand – I’ve never “not had” the friend who was born three days before me.

I was lying awake in the early hours of this morning, unable to sleep and pondering yesterday’s visit. These ponderings relate to a host of other recent ponderings – there’s a lot to unpack. Bottom line, being present in people’s lives matters.

Yesterday – for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere – was the first day after the Winter Solstice. The day after the shortest day of the year. Yesterday had a brief more amount more of daylight that the day before.

When we are truly present in each other’s lives, that presence matters. Being consciously present brings light and joy into people’s lives.

During this morning’s 2:00 am hour, I laid awake in bed listening to my cat’s breath (she finally sleeps with me, two years after I adopted her). I thought of the times when either someone has been present in my life or when I have been present in someone’s life. All of us remember such moments in our lives. We can all bring to mind stories of people who have present to us and times we have been present for someone else.

There’s a Christmas lesson here.

Christ came into the world to be present with humanity. We celebrate this every Christmas (for those interested in liturgical seasons, since we celebrate Jesus’ birthday on December 25 we celebrate Jesus’s conception – the Feast of the Anunciation – nine months earlier on March 25. Further, we celebrate the Feast Day of John the Baptist – who “leapt in his mother’s womb” when Mary came to visit his pregnant mother – on June 24).

We are called by our faith to be present in people’s lives and to bring positivity where we can:

Churches are present in the community by providing social services (soup kitchens, food banks, etc.). We are all called to meet the needs in our communities through active volunteerism.
One of my friends has taken on leading a grief and loss support group – a great service.
We can all find ways to communicate the message of God’s loving presence. Through our baptism, we are called to be “priests, prophets, and kings.”

When I tell stories about being present to other people I become animated (at other times, I am occasionally told that my conversational tone is rather flat or monotone!). I am seeing that other people’s willingness to be present in my life and me being present to other people has been integral to the times when my life has been most transformed.

Please don’t get the idea that I always to do a great job of being present in other people’s lives. This blog post came to be because I am seeing the poignancy – both from being present and from having people be present with me – of how being present transforms lives. All of us have someone with whom we can be present. During this Advent and Christmas season, we can all share the joy of Christ’s love.

Kim Burkhardt blogs about faith at The Hermitage Within. Thank you for reading this faith blog and for sharing it with your friends. While you are here, please feel welcome to provide support to sustain this blog ($$).

Integrating ourselves into our faith

December 11, 2025

Sometimes, multiple threads weave themselves into our awareness such that we come to recognize each thread as belonging to one tapestry.

Such has happened in reference to several books I’ve come across in recent years.

Several years ago, a comment someone made about “stages of faith” led me to James Fowler’s book of that title (Stages of Faith). I learned in that book about the developmental faith stages we progress through as we age and (hopefully!) mature. I come back to that book occasionally.

Since then, I have come across faith-related books such as The Deeply Formed Life and a book called Integral Spirituality (there are actually several books with that phrase part of their titles). While I haven’t yet read those two books, I brought them home to at least ponder their titles and/or topics. This led me to a phrase within Catholicism called Integral Human Development – the full development of each person.

I considered these books and topics as I explored how to fully bring together what then seemed to be disparate (compartmentalized) aspects of my life and the experience of living as a person of faith.

Truly, being a person of faith must mean what I will call “integral faith development.”

To truly be people of faith, we can’t be “church people” on Sunday morning, work people during the week (Monday to Friday, 9:00 – 5:00 – or whenever we work), athletes at the gym or the beach, etc.

Being a person of faith means that our faith must integrate into every aspect of our lives. And, every aspect of our lives must integrate into our faith.

This doesn’t mean that everyone who goes to church should give up their job, their athletic activities, etc. to become “church ladies.”

It means that we can’t compartmentalize our Sunday morning pew from the rest of our lives.

When I first read James Fowler’s Stages of Faith, I came to recognize that the various aspects of my own human development had developed at different rates. I did well academically in school – my mental development was great! The development of my social, emotional, and career aspects were “all over the map” in terms of development. My faith development? I had been away from church for twenty years and had left my faith development in a high school phase. Yikes! I don’t think I’m alone in this. I am calling this a “mountain peaks” approach to “non-integrated human development.” I was born in a mountainous geographic region and now live in another region where we have mountain peaks, several snow-capped (inactive) volcanoes, and an ocean – I notice each mountain peak within a mountain range being a different height. When we live our lives in such a way that each aspect of our development – emotions, mental development, social development, faith development – is in a different age-phase, we are living with differing developmental “mountain peaks” within who we are. Such a non-integrated way of living doesn’t result in personal health, well-being, or maturity. When I recognized that the then-segmented aspects of myself had been developing at different rates, I set out to bring the various aspects of myself into developmental alignment. I reviewed various models of faith and psychological development and “mapped out” which of my own mountain peaks were at higher and lower levels of development. I gave myself a couple of years to bring the lower mountain peaks up to approximately the same age-level of development as the higher peaks. The end result? A more content and more functional self.

However, there’s more to this than just a well-developed and well-rounded self. While the outcome I described in the previous paragraph is absolutely beneficial, the pew we sit in at church doesn’t exist solely to be a self-help pew. Sitting in a pew on Sunday and being a person of faith is about “love God and love your neighbor,” fully growing into a relationship with God, allowing God to turn us into the people God wants us to be, being present and lovingly impactful in the lives of God’s children (we are all God’s children – including the driver who smashed up your car, the politician you don’t like, the bully at your child’s school, the operator who accidentally dropped your call, the relative you dislike, etc. and etc.).

We can’t fully live into being a person of faith by compartmentalizing each part of our lives. We have to bring our lives into our faith – our joys, our successes, our athletic activities, our family events, our recent car accident, our difficult boss, etc. We have to bring our faith into all aspects of our lives – finding ways to talk about being a person of faith in the community (even if we live in a secular city), into driving and the crows we hate (I confessed in the confessional once that my irritation with heavy traffic was resulting in angry irritation directed at crows who were in the roadway. I learned to pray the Hail Mary while driving…..), etc.

We are people of faith when we integrate all aspects of our lives. We grow into living the Gospels in our lives.

Entering Advent, Entering Light

December 1, 2025

The life of faith turns our ideas upside down.

As we entered a new church year this past weekend, we moved out of the liturgical color of green. When I sit at traffic light and see the light turn green, I – in my impatience – start talking to the driver ahead of me: “Okay, driver who hasn’t instantly accelerated (thereby slowing down my effort to get where I’m going), green means take your foot off your brake and put your foot on the accelerator. Green means go.”

Instead of getting the green light to go full speed ahead during Lent, we shift into purple.

“Great,” we might be tempted to say. “Purple is the color for royalty. We shift into royal gear.”

Not so fast. During Advent, we are invited to slow down. Further, it is not us who is the royalty.

On the first Sunday of Advent, we heard in the second reading – Romans 13: 11-14 – to waken from our sleep. We heard to throw off the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light. We heard in the Gospel that we know neither the day nor the hour when Christ will return. We await in watchfulness.

For all this upside-downness, turning to Christ and Christ’s royal return really does turn our life upside-down. A right-side-up, as we discover.

“For it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me”- Galatians 2:20. When we let Christ live in us, he transforms our very being (during this time of both waiting and living anew during the Catholic both/and!). We become a new creation. The light of Christ – during this darkest time of the geographic year (for those of us in the Northern hemisphere) – transforms our very being.

We are a week past Christ the King. It is Christ who is the royalty. We, as servants, must learn to serve. The more we learn to live in faith’s juxtapositions, the more God leads us into the fullness of life that God intends for us. (Also, the people who know me and who read this blog remind me occasionally that I sometimes grow into the concepts I write about slower than I write about them. Humility is good for us!)

Faith resources – tools, not straight jackets

October 24, 2025

The ways through which we travel our faith journey – church attendance, types of prayer, etc. – are meant to nurture our faith journey. If anything we participate in feels as though it is constricting our faith journey, either something is amiss or we are ready for additional or different faith activities. Being attentive to any sense of constriction is an opportunity to look to adapt either ourselves or our situation. It is entirely good when we notice that we need to adjust – such observations mean we are engaged in our faith journey (or, sometimes, that we need to become more engaged). Our faith journey has developmental stages just as we experience stages in other aspects of our human development – stages in cognitive development (academics), stages in psychological and social development, etc.

By way of example, I am starting a Master’s in Theology in January (a “Masters in Theology Studies” or “MTS” for lay people rather than a Master’s in Divinity for pastors-in-training). At a recent meeting for registered MTS students, we were provided with the first of our faith formation sessions. We were told that Masters in Theological Studies degrees typically cover four academic subjects – scripture, ethics, systemic theology, and historical theology. In addition to academics, MTS programs – ours, at least – include the faith development of enrolled students (faith formation) because the degree should include our faith maturation in addition to a focus on academics (a whole person approach). During that day, we were instructed to start participating daily in Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) – the daily prescribed prayer life of the Church.

In recent years, my prayer life has principally been one of contemplative prayer – both at home and in small prayer groups via Contemplative Outreach. There are as many ways to pray as there are people; contemplative prayer has been personally fruitful for me. In contemplative prayer, I encounter periods of time in which I experience God loving me – which has been freeing me from difficult aspects of “the human condition.” As with anything else, I do also experience occasional dry periods in my experience with contemplative prayer. Therefore, I am now open to also praying Liturgy of the Hours (Diving Office).

Prior to being recently instructed to start participating in Liturgy of the Hours, I viewed the Divine Office remotely (“from afar”) as the prerogative of priests and avowed religious – a respected activity distant from my daily life. When we were recently told to start participating in this daily activity for the MTS program, part of me was intrigued. Another part of me was also relieved when we were told that Liturgy of the Hours is “a tool to help us pray, not a straight jacket to keep us from praying.” I am enjoying the journey into the Divine Office.

Book Review: An Immigration of Theology

October 20, 2025

Book Cover: An Immigration of Theology — Book: An Immigration of Theology

I recently came upon An Immigration of Theology by Fr. Simon Kim and am intrigued with what the author has done with this book.

Goodreads summarizes this book, in part, with the following: “The theological reflections of Virgilio Elizondo and Gustavo Gutiérrez are examples of the ecclesial fruitfulness of the second half of the twentieth century. Following the directives of Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council, [they] present the Gospel message in relevant terms to their own people…. Inspired by this moment in Church history, while at the same time recognizing the plight of their people….. [they] discovered a new way of doing theology by asking a specific set of questions based on their local context. By investigating where God is present in [their local context], both theologians have uncovered a hermeneutical lens in rereading Scripture and deepening our understanding of ecclesial tradition…. a theological method that takes seriously the contextual circumstances of their locale. By utilizing the common loci theologici of Scripture and tradition in conjunction with context and their own experience, [they] illustrate…. how every group must embrace their own unique theological reflection.”

I find this interesting – there seems to be the option in this book of stating that we must make theological concepts relevant to our own circumstances while also stating that theological principles are universal. What I am hoping to read in this book – now that I have it sitting on my coffee table – is that theological principles are universal in principle and also local in adaptation.

Salvation history, the universe

September 5, 2025

I have lately been pondering how the grand scope of the universe – the many number of galaxies, etc. – factors into what God pays attention to.

When we think of God – with the finite perspective of people – we tend to think of God in terms of God’s relationship with us humans. About humanity’s “salvation history.” We humans are created in God’s image – we are loved by God so much that God gave his only son for our salvation. We humans are infinitely loved by God.

For much of Judeo-Christian history, humanity’s understanding of the universe – and the size of the universe – was much smaller than the understanding we have now. It was much simpler, in a sense, to think of God solely in terms of God’s relationship to our salvation history.

We now know so much more about the grandeur of the size of the universe.

To think of us now in terms of being made in God’s image and for us to be God’s children takes on a perspective of a very different scale.

God is infinite enough to love us and “know us by name” and “know the number of hairs on our head” AND simultaneously be engaged in the astro-physics/geology of a VERY LARGE universe. Wow. We now receive photos of galaxies far beyond anything people knew in previous centuries. Amazing. And, this makes God even more amazing to us – that God can “know the number of hairs on our head” and simultaneously know the full geographic scope of all the galaxies that exist. Does God watch in wonder at the colors and contours of various galaxies?

Yet, we with our human limitations struggle with the comparatively finite question of how to do a better job of “love God and love our neighbor.” Back to earth….. What can we do today to be good to our families, friends, neighbors?

New website name, same great blog!

August 13, 2025

Image of road less travelled — May your faith journey be a road well travelled

Thank you for reading this Spiritual Accompaniment blog. The blog name that appears in your email inbox is “Spiritual Accompaniment.”

The website domain for this spiritual accompaniment website has been, until recently, http://www.parishcatechist.org . The website name has changed to The Hermitage Within . This new website name more broadly reflects the website and blog’s goal of spiritual reflection while also making it more search-friendly for new visitors.

You should continue to receive blog posts in your email with the name “Spiritual Accompaniment.

In addition to continuing to receive our blog content via email, we invite you to visit our updated website.

FYI…. In the coming months, we will begin offering an additional faith development program to nurture your “hermitage within.” Nurturing adult faith development is our goal! We will provide more information about this program in the months to come.

Until then, continue to enjoy our spiritual accompaniment blog.

Prayer: genuine engagement

August 1, 2025

On December 24, 2017, a pastor was driving me home from an evening Christmas Eve service. As we were winding through snowy roads, I was telling him about the angst I was feeling about a personal problem that was “eating up my insides” at the time. He asked if I had prayed about the matter. “No,” I replied, “I haven’t prayed about this. I have been having such a positive prayer relationship with God for the last year – I don’t want to ruin this positive prayer relationship by bringing my problems to God.” I can still feel this heavy weight of the subsequent silence in the car as the pastor’s face puckered. Finally – after a moment that lasted too long – he sternly replied, “You have to bring EVERYTHING to God.”

I got the point.

We are to bring our whole selves to God. Not just the parts we want to bring to prayer. There’s no point packaging ourselves – or our situations – to present to God as we would wish. Do we really think God doesn’t know the real dirt?

God doesn’t want to deal with any superficialities that we might “sugar coat” in prayer. Prayer becomes meaningful when we get real. God loves us, wants to have a real, meaningful relationship with us.

Prayer is also a long-haul relationship. Prayer doesn’t become meaningful when we pray as an equivalent to 30 second chats held in a busy hallway. Prayer becomes real when we make real and continuing time to be meaningfully present with God. The shape and form of being “meaningfully present” in prayer is going to be different for each of us. A faith person who I admire mentioned to me several years ago (after the Christmas Eve car ride mentioned above) that everyone one of us is going to have a different prayer relationship with God because of the different nature of who each of us is…. What matters for each of us is that we commit sustained, ongoing time to building personal “prayer”being present” time with God. The fruits of that prayer become clear and substantive when we continue such sustained, meaningful time in prayer.

Wondering about new ways to pray? Check out a ways-to-pray list in one of my previous blog posts.

Kim Burkhardt blogs about faith at A Parish Catechis t. Thank you for reading this faith blog and for sharing it with your friends. While you are here, please feel welcome to provide support to sustain this blog ($$).

Prayer: “Wordless sighs of the heart”

July 28, 2025

When I read The Tradition of Catholic Prayer from the Benedictine monks of Saint Meinrad Monastery, one of the types of prayer they mention is “wordless sighs of the heart.”

I am drawn to this phrase – I find prayer to be most meaningful when it is heartfelt. How about you?

,,,,,It’s been said, “There can be no faith life without prayer.” It’s also said that we cannot pray and continue sinning; when we really engage in prayer, we find that we have to allow God to change us for the better. Personally, I experience in prayer that God loves us!

True prayer goes beyond mere statements or superficial monologues directed in God’s direction. True prayer is dialogue, meaningful communication, presence. A “wordless sigh of the heart,” for example, is us opening ourselves bare before God.

How often does human prayer involve allowing our innermost selves to be fully transparent before God? Such vulnerability is a real interaction. While God certainly knows our hearts – God made us and knows us – it’s also true that we have free will. God doesn’t force us to into relationship; it’s up to us whether we are willing to be fully present before God.

When we aren’t in active relationship with God, the Holy Spirit occasionally knocks on our heart’s door; it’s up to us whether we respond to such promptings. We can also open our heart’s door to God by taking the initiative ourselves to communicate – God will show up when invited in. Sometimes, we feel God’s presence in prayer (I have!); other times, God may work “under the surface” in ways that we don’t observe; God working to change us “under our radar” is what John of the Cross wrote about in his book Dark Night of the Soul (“Dark Night” being a period of inner transition that isn’t fully transparent to us, rather than necessarily being a depressive period!).

There are many forms of prayer in which we have an active relationship with God. Contemplative prayer (for example, visit the network of Contemplative Outreach) is one way, being engaged while at church is another way – as are meditative prayers such as praying the rosary, talking to God, heartfelt intercessions, prayers of praise (including music)……… What makes prayer meaningful is that we pray in a way that makes it relational. There are as many ways to pray as there are people!

Interested in learning more about prayer? Check out A Parish Catechist’s previous blog post, “List: ways to pray.“

Book Review: Spirituality of the Christian East

July 23, 2025

Book: The Spirituality of the Christian East — Book Cover: The Spirituality of the Christian East

I came upon this book during my current phase of reading about the Christian East (i.e., Eastern Orthodox). As I read this book, I am surprised that it’s not more widely known and discussed among readers of Christianity.

The Spirituality of the Christian East, as summarized by Goodreads, was written by Tomas Spidlak, “Professor-emeritus of the Pontifical Oriental Institute at Rome, [who] dedicated his scholarly life to studying and teaching the theology and spirituality of the Christian East….”

What I find compelling about this book is its’ readable overview of the historical, philosophical, and cultural inputs of how Christianity developed. I purchased this book for its’ focus on the Christian East – which I am learning more about (the Christian East broadly as well as specific geographic regions of the Eastern Church – Russian, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, etc.) – yet, I am also recognizing that anyone wanting a historical overview of Christianity’s overall development will find an insightful and informative read in this book.

Philosophy wasn’t my favorite subject in college. At the time, I didn’t wrestle well with its’ abstractions….. I thought at the time that I should like philosophy since my mother declared to be a philosophy major (she studied two years at the University of Washington). Later, I learned that seminarians are required to study philosophy because of Greek philosophy’s impact on the early development of Christian theology. Therefore, I have made a new effort to take an interest in philosophy. In the book The Spirituality of the Christian East, I finally found an introductory about Greek philosophy’s impact on Christianity that make sense to me. It has given me a springboard for reading more about philosophy’s impact on Christianity more meaningfully.

…..As a reader from Western Christianity, I have also been surprised to discover in this book that the Eastern Orthodox tradition has its’ own set of recognized faith leaders over the centuries – historical saints, mystics (hesychasts), Desert Fathers, leaders. Symeon the New Theologian, etc. I shouldn’t find this surprising. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that the Orthodox tradition has its’ own figures that it recognizes by name.

This book is worth reading for anyone interested in an introduction to Eastern Orthodox Christianity and/or a historical overview of Christianity in general.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechis t. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (it’s free – thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).