Tchaikovsky’s operas are remarkable for their passion, characters, and their pure, elevated humanity His music has the quality of touching something deep in one’s heart, revealing profound aspects of the human experience in a lofty and beautiful way that transcends time and barriers. Russian operas are not quite as well known as the operas of [...]
Humans may be greedy and wicked in their heads and still appear generous and good to the world. Humans may pose as wise and sagacious and yet be full of foolishness. The Pharisees had so focused on the exterior that their inner compass was awry. Luke 11:37-41 sees Jesus dining with a Pharisee whose heart [...]
It’s Halloween, and you’re looking for that perfect, spooky Halloween music that’s a little more sophisticated than “The Monster Mash” and “Thriller” and “Werewolves of London.” Look no further, friends. I’ve done my own hopping around to see what others consider to be their Top 10 classical spooky favorites. My list is a little different; [...]
This is the mystery which, in the end, Saint Matthew relates in the pages of his Gospel: Jesus is not a teacher of ethics, or a strange oriental prophet, but the promised Messiah, unrecognisable except to those who had broken together that fragment of the Book of Isaiah and lived with it—lived with its mystery—in [...]
Fear is the gift that leads to 'docibilitas' and docility: 'docibilitas,' the teachable frame of mind that opens us to the lessons He is constantly teaching us; and docility through which we say our fiat upon hearing His voice. Luke 12: 1-7 sees Jesus surrounded by a crowd of thousands but, as if dramatizing what [...]
Our greatest tragedy is sin unrepented, but after that comes the tragedy of unteachability, which stunts and limits us, withers God’s work, undoes our best resolutions, even those of half an hour ago, renders us partially fruitless, and makes us spiritually sterile by our own childish hands. Matthew 19: 3-12 once again shows the Pharisees [...]
The challenge of greatness is not the challenge of human achievement, nor the conquest of glory on the way to success and accumulation. The challenge of greatness comes in our readiness to take on the lesson of humility that is found in the Eternal Child. Matthew 18: 1-5, 10, 12-14 sees the disciples preoccupied with [...]
Sometimes the Gospel calls us not so much to encounter the Lord but to take a look at ourselves, and before we know it, the Scriptures hold up a mirror before our stained and deformed faces, and then Lord help us if we refuse in our hearts to perceive what our mind’s eye is given [...]
One of the fundamental mistakes of the Pharisees is the vice of self-deception, the sin of being impostors to themselves. But it is by no means restricted to them. Indeed, the case of the Pharisees should stand as a warning to us. Matthew 15: 1-2, 10-14 brings us another episode in which Jesus is questioned [...]
Luke 14: 25-33 sees Jesus turning to a large crowd and speaking to them some home truths. What must they have thought, these enthusiasts who followed after Him? For Jesus does not want enthusiasm; He wants fidelity, a completely different thing. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my [...]
Please join Peter Kalkavage as he discusses the metaphysics of music: music's role in the liberal arts, the paradox in the union of rational and irrational, order and feeling in its composition, and music's connection and reflection of the deeper order of the natural world, of being. Introduction: In this podcast, we hear from Peter [...]
Martha was so hurried and so busy in her own house. But the question is: What was she seeking? Luke 10: 38-42 offers us the famous scene in which we learn practically nothing of the teaching Jesus delivered! Instead, we hear the story of a harried woman run off her feet, feeling like she is [...]
What then are the birds of the air, the devils who come and steal the seed away from our souls? Matthew 13: 18-23 takes us back to the parable of the sower that that we heard two Sundays ago, a story that contains several chapters within it, all full of llessons for our spiritual lives. [...]
We are Sons and Daughters of the Father with and through Him, and Mary was so before us all. She is our model of collaborating in redemption for the sake of His body the Church—a model even of our sorrows on earth, and please God, of our eternal joys. Matthew 12: 46-50 is brief but [...]