The best poems are always going to be about common things. What is uncommon is always the vision of the poet, made visible to us in words that skip along and yet find a way of stopping the reader so that he may examine his own path and think about new ones. Elizabeth Marshall's "Pathways: [...]
There is too much despair in the world. Yet Christ bids us be of good cheer, for he says that he has “overcome the world.” Because he has won the war, we can be confident in fighting the battle of our lives so that we and those we love can find salvation. This Lenten season [...]
“On the Role of Literature in Formation" is perhaps Pope Francis’s best document of his pontificate. Short, sweet, and full of good lines quoted and written. And yet he remains a "second friend" to many of his flock because they see their own world in some fundamentally different ways than he does. Pope Francis’s pontificate [...]
Robin Hood's legend lives on as a model for all who try to serve God when government, the rich, and, all too often, those vowed to God’s service explicitly are fighting against us. The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green, illustrations by Arthur Hall (Puffin Books, 2010, 294 pages) The most difficult conflicts [...]
While Texas secession would indeed mean that it was no longer one of the states in the union, author T.L. Hulsey has bigger fish to fry than merely separating Texas from California, Minnesota, and New York. What he wants is to start again as the Founders did, but better. The Constitution of Non-State Government: Field [...]
Even in the midst of circumstances we consider less than ideal—a degraded and hostile culture, broken families—the Spirit of the Lord works so that we are not alone. He raises up children of the Father who want to be conformed to the Son in their own lives and to witness to the truth. They are [...]
Despite making fun of the nature of tech company perfidy and internet culture, “The Mitchells vs. The Machines,” like too many animated films, may simply add to the inability of its younger viewers to follow a story for more than a minute. I should have known. The ad that popped up for The Mitchells vs. [...]
Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were both "Godded-up" to an extreme degree, treated at various times as if they could not err, treatment that author Allen Barra thinks contributed to the fact that neither man ever really grew up. Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age, By Allen Barra [...]
Chesterton once said, “It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap.” Jerry Seinfeld did the hard work to make his show leap week after week and into history. And twenty-six years after "Seinfeld" ended, [...]
The sharp focus on Mrs. Verhagen gives “The Winged Watchman,” Hilda van Stockum’s novel about a Dutch family during World War II, such power. The close-up tasks of the women are just as heroic as the tasks of the men who often fought to protect their loved ones. Who knew a great war story would [...]
We are not perfectly transformed in our minds. We are still slightly hypocritical. But Christ still calls us to speak of his mercies. Knowing our weakness, we can be gentle with others and reverent toward God, who knows our weakness and yet loves and uses us for his purposes even as he is healing us. [...]
I’ll continue to honor Lent in my heart all the year. The reason is neither “Catholic guilt” nor “Jansenism.” It is that Jesus rose from the dead so that we might imitate him, take up our own crosses, and experience truly what it means to be an Easter people, freed to love and serve God [...]
Just as Easter joy must animate the rigors of Lent, so too must the spirit of the desert and the Cross ground my celebration of Easter. To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour [...]
“Good Friday is not just one day of the year,” Fr. Richard John Neuhaus writes in "Death on a Friday Afternoon. " “It is a day relived in every day of the world, and of our lives in the world.” There is “no denying that the cross is surrounded by glory,” wrote Fr. Richard John Neuhaus in Death [...]