In a very short novel, Allen Mendenhall manages to combine a great deal of philosophical and quasi-theological reflection, Twain-like adolescent comedy, and Faulkner-like familial dysfunction, adding to the Southern literary tradition’s collection of tales filled with absurdity, hilarity, shattering revelation, and haunting desire, all mixed to disturb and delight. A Glooming Peace This Morning by [...]
Seeing the works of the early decades of the twentieth century by Robert Hugh Benson and Hilaire Belloc as part of a living tradition of historical scholarship, we might hope that the revival of interest in their historical perspectives might prove inspirational to new generations of pioneering cultural figures in the twenty-first century. The reception [...]
Biographies by Fr. Bernard Bro and and Kathryn Harrison give us two vivid depictions of St. Thérèse. Yet, attitudinally speaking, their accounts of this Christ-imitating, self-immolating woman of Lisieux have little in common. Thérèse of Lisieux made the first record of her life, and that record, written in obedience to her Carmelite superior, is the [...]
What happens to the muscles of our bodies can happen to the muscles of our hearts too. This can happen with ever greater intensity when spiritual weightlifting is practised in prayer, in the mystic way. The difference between conversion and repentance is so important that it needs further explanation. I hope to do this by [...]
Clearly, Frank Meyer was a major player in the modern conservative movement in its early days. But the heart of Daniel J. Flynn's new book doesn’t really explain just how it was that its subject somehow “invented” conservatism. The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, by Daniel J. Flynn. (562 [...]
In the forties and fifties, Cleanth Brooks devoted himself to interpreting and popularizing the work of one of America’s greatest but most difficult novelists, his fellow Southerner William Faulkner. When I think of the state of literary criticism in the academy today, I think of a New Yorker cartoon someone has put up in the [...]
In this book I am not just trying to view God’s Plan, but our personal and unique part in it. God can only enable us to participate in his plan to the degree to which we are prepared to respond to his call as the Apostles did, and those who radically chose to follow him [...]
Starting just 30 years after the Crucifixion, Catholic England produced remarkable figures, including lesser-known luminaries like Bishop Robert Grosseteste, who pioneered the scientific method. In my book Faith of Our Fathers: A History of True England, I sought to present a panoramic overview of two thousand years of English history, from the first century to the [...]
Without returning to the prayer and the spirituality of our forefathers, the Church has seemed to have gradually deteriorated at every level. However, I am now witnessing the many who are beginning to see the truth. They are beginning to see and do what can alone bring personal renewal, and Church renewal, by generating and [...]
I urge “imaginative conservatives” to use their imagination in selecting what they choose to read. Instead of wasting time with the toxic triteness of New York Times bestsellers, we need to reward the courage that adventurous publishers are showing by buying and reading the new and adventurous works that they are publishing. For almost a [...]
Who would have thought that a teacher might convince a student that living a virtuous life was both a challenge and an adventure? David Hein apparently has done just that in the classroom, and those classroom teachers who read his book might well come to learn from him and agree with him—and do the same [...]
If we too wish to give all or nothing, we must remember that everyone must give according to the different graces they receive from God. Holiness is not so much about “always giving just a little bit more” as it is about opening our hearts more to receive what God is doing in our lives. [...]
Despite her rather profound and intense Catholic artistry, Willa Cather was not a Roman Catholic, though many during her life presumed she was a practicing one. How else could she grasp the essence of the faith—in all its beauties and in all its failings—so majestically? “I am amused that so many of the reviews of [...]
Why did the introduction of the new liturgy not bring about the long-anticipated renewal for which we were all longing? Without the deep personal relationship with Christ that develops and grows in personal prayer, the liturgy can soon become ineffective, not in itself, but in those who are not prepared to receive it. Many of [...]