Rembrandt's Melancholic Monk

And: the comforting pleasure of Michael Guillen's popular faith-and-science book

This painting by Rembrandt is of his son Titus wearing a Franciscan monk’s cowl. It was, to me, the most moving of all the paintings I saw in the Rijksmuseum a couple of weeks ago. I drew a sharp breath when I first saw it, and thought, “That’s me.”

Why? Because I am in the midst of a long period of discernment about the direction God wants me to go with…