Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 5hThe book of Ephesians taught Christians to assume demons were in the air, causing violent storms. By the 16th century, Protestants split from Catholics over the efficacy of sacramentals, i.e. church bells, to combat the demons. Then came science and lightning rods first went on churches in 1756. 020
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 8hI salute my translator friends everywhere, on this, the feast day of St. Jerome. 1153
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I grew up in a religious tradition that taught, We pray in our time; the answers come in God's time. When I was 13 I prayed often for more body hair. I wanted to be seen as a man and not just a boy. Now I know that God's answer came in my late 50s in the form of hair in my nose and ears. 0130
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 29/09/2026The Lord shall cover thee with his feathers. Ps. 91:4, kjv 010
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Ads for other books, once common on back covers, were designed for rail travel. Entice the passengers across from you. 030
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Well said. This was my experience of the book too. drb.ie/article/when...drb.ieWhen More is Less - Dublin Review of BooksThis colossal volume of Heaney’s poems ‘almost disguises the fact that he is a poet by entombing his lyric in a mass of annotation, exegesis and “uncollected” poems’. 030
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 28/09/2026As you can tell from my review, I like this new book very much. www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews...spiritualityandpractice.comNinety-Nine by Amira Mittermaier | Review | Spirituality & PracticeListening to Muslims about who God is, what God does. 011
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Graham Greene once said that the marks of a Christian civilization were 'the divided mind, the uneasy conscience.' In that case, we must indeed be post-Christian. 040
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 27/09/2026About 2 months from now. #MKE “We're so glad to welcome former Milwaukeean, author, and editor Jon M Sweeney back to the store to celebrate not one but two new releases” boswellbooks.com/event/2026-1...boswellbooks.comJon M Sweeney, author of A Year with the Classics and Meister EckhartBoswell Book Company - 2559 N Downer Ave, Milwaukee, WI 030
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Wouldn't it be great if, every year, we were all anointed with oil, had it rubbed into the palms of our hands, like a priest at ordination, reminding us that we have holy work to do? 1311
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 26/09/2026There’s no rule that says a copyright page in a book has to be boring. This is a Rohrschach test. Can you see it? 0102
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Let them love in the same way as one is hungry and thirsty. -Simone Weil (Notebooks, v1) 052
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 25/09/2026The thin bible paper, flex hardcover, and ribbon marker were genius for this classic, matching form to content—since editor Edith Hamilton considered Plato almost part of the Christian revelation. 092
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 24/09/2026"Let your question be a prayer." William of St-Thierry 132
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 23/09/2026"The greatest danger to the monk's life of prayer is the possibility of becoming too attached to his work. The basic principle: if a monk can support himself on a dollar a day, he shouldn't work for two dollars." Thomas Merton, lecturing to the novices on Cassian 042
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 23/09/2026I'm loving these early mornings, as the excess of summer slows, and the coming coldness turns my mind to other things. 0100
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Sending love today to everyone who loved Phyllis Tickle. This is the 11th anniversary of her death. 060
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 22/09/2026“Children...begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them.” Kathleen Norris 0195
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 21/09/2026We’ve had a crazy bumper crop year on our three apple trees. This is the latest batch I have picked to give away. Taking them to synagogue tonight for break the fast. 3213
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 21/09/2026This is necessary history. My review of 'A Protest History of the United States,' now in pb. www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews...spiritualityandpractice.comA Protest History of the United States by Gloria J. Browne-Marshall | Review | Spirituality & PracticeHow struggle for change has defined the United States from the start. 040
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 21/09/2026...Without a word / prayer elevates the heart... (poet Jeffrey Yang, "Starfish") 011
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 21/09/2026A great addition to tonight’s Kol Nidre service. 051
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Today’s find at the Vermont antiquarian booksellers fair. 1110
Reposted by Jon M. SweeneyShell @mmd11.bsky.social · 19/09/2026One of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies! 0121
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 19/09/2026God is not what you think from ‘Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets’ 1163
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 18/09/2026The separation between asceticism and mysticism is an unfortunate modern development. -Thomas Merton A Course in Christian Mysticism 160
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I miss Boston, ordering a lahg regulah and being fully and completely understood. 020
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 18/09/2026These 3 bios all happened to arrive today. Three great women of letters. 010
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Vatican document affirms interreligious dialogue as 'journey of hope' for humanity www.ncronline.org/vatican/vati...ncronline.orgVatican document affirms interreligious dialogue as 'journey of hope' for humanityA new Vatican document, the result of a collaboration among three dicasteries, affirms Vatican II's landmark 1965 teaching on the church's relationship with the Jewish people and those of other faiths... 262
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 17/09/2026I am told that most African languages use the same word for guest as for stranger. 021
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 17/09/2026What’s the book you’ve most often loaned and not had returned? Mine: Life Work, by Donald Hall 120
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 17/09/2026O Lord...I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother. Ps. 131 040
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Today is the Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. This is where it happened, on Mount La Verna. 081
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Thomas Merton on Evagrius: "Apatheia is the victory of the soul over all the devils (i.e. all the passions). Note that apatheia is not mere insensibility. It is compounded of humility, compunction, zeal, and intense love of God." 161
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Then (from 'Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart') 0111
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 15/09/2026These idiotic AI-generated email fraud messages that every book author receives everyday, now, are unfortunate because if someone were to write genuinely interested in a book of mine I would never know, because every email is now deleted immediately. #authors #books 050
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 15/09/2026“This warm and wise book invites its readers to meet Eckhart as an equal and a friend with whom we can intimately speak, whose heart and mind we may be drawn into.” —Dr. Rebecca Stephens, Chair of the Eckhart Society, author of 'Grounding the Soul' 📖 Available Dec. 7 070
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Readers have always determined the books that succeed. Don Quixote first appeared in 1605, by an unknown and penniless author, published in a cheap edition full of typos. 010
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I found this in the Sheed & Ward papers at Notre Dame: Gary Wills letter to his editor in 1961: "I gather from Frank [Sheed] that [Evelyn] Waugh was in one of his more bilious moments when he wrote the review of my book. Well, if one plays with a cactus plant, I suppose one is bound to get pricked." 080
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Stanislaus Joyce journaling about his son James: “Catholicism he has appreciated, rejected and opposed, and liked again when it had no power over him.” 140
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 14/09/2026I hope I can be forgiven by my fellow Catholics for choosing to ignore the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross - the triumph of it, the supposed historical find, how it was used to buttress empire, and the vilifying of the Jews in the process (who supposedly hid the cross until Helena found it). 120
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 11/09/2026I was in our offices in Woodstock, Vermont that day and someone had a radio on, against office rules. When the news alert came on, she told us, and everyone gathered around that radio. As things unfolded, people began to cry. Before noon we said let's all go home. 021
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Without Charles Dickens and H. K. Browne, there would’ve been no Walt Disney. 020
Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 10/09/2026"So welcome what comes of the dark" From 'Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets'🙏❤️ 050