October 25

Thomas Keating, Vladimir Herzog, and Saints Crispin and Crispinian

Author

David Barnhart
October 25, 2025

Bolivia, 2009.

Today marks the death, in 2018, of Thomas Keating, a trappist priest who popularized centering prayer. We marked his birthday in March. 

Today marks the death, in 1975, of Vladimir Herzog, a journalist in Brazil who opposed the military dictatorship in that country. Although he was tortured to death, the Brazilian military tried to stage it as a suicide. His friends, family, and his rabbi, though, made it clear that his death was an assassination. 

Today is the Feast Day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, who were martyred in 285. The legend is that they were cobblers and leather-workers whose leadership drew the wrath of Emperor Diocletian. 

Reflection: 

Vladimir Herzog said, 

“When we lose the ability to feel indignation at the atrocities committed against others, we also lose the right to call ourselves civilized human beings.” 

Thomas Keating wrote: 

“The contemplative journey, because it involves the purification of the unconscious, is not a magic carpet to bliss. It is an exercise of letting go of the false self, a humbling process, because it is the only self we know. God approaches us from many different perspectives: illness, misfortune, bankruptcy, divorce proceedings, rejection, inner trials. God has not promised to take away our trials, but to help us to change our attitudes toward them. That is what holiness really is. In this life, happiness is rooted in our basic attitude toward reality.”

and

“When we decide to submit to the Divine Therapy, the first thing that God does is to reassure us that we are respected and loved by God. The idea that we are no good, unlovable or unworthy—beliefs that, as we have seen, may be firmly entrenched from early childhood—is an insult to God. God does not make junk; we make junk.”

Prayer: God, help us to realize our own worth is rooted in you, and not in achievements, wealth, or privilege. Amen.