The Sacred Heart of Jesus should not only glow with the divine love, but kindle with that same influence all that comes within its reach? The fire he came to send on the earth was none other than the fire of love which penetrated and informed his own sacred humanity. I am come to cast [...]
All play is an attempt to approximate to the Creator, who performs his work with the divine seriousness which its meaning and purpose demand, and yet with the spontaneity and effortless skill of the great artist he is, creating because he wills to create and not because he must. Man, according to Plotinus, is a [...]
Let us consider the case of a man who is facing a difficult decision—a decision, let us say, which will affect me. This decision involves a matter of some importance, and so I am deeply concerned that the man should make the right decision—right, suitable, impartial, just. I am not certain that he will in [...]
The divine plan in nature calls for human completion, as divine grace in man calls for human co-operation. Work then is the redemption of nature as Christ is the redemption of man, and civilization is the product of both redemptive acts, the completion of the circle by which nature serves man and man serves God. [...]
I started out for Florence in the morning in a state of feverish excitement, and the recollection of the sights of that day makes it difficult to write even now. We drove down the hill from San Casciano to the Greve valley with a sense of overwhelming tragedy. The destruction of Florence seemed the end [...]
In the drama of the two brothers and the loving Father the heart of the Gospel is laid open before us. Human freedom and divine love are here. Human sinfulness in two of its more dramatic forms—dissipation and contemptuous pride—are on view. We are warned about the reality of sin and brought face to face [...]
Robert Hugh Benson's "The King’s Achievement" does what good historical fiction should do: it renders a complex historical situation justly and it brings characters to life in a story that is interesting for its own sake. On October 31, 1904, Robert Hugh Benson wrote his mother that he had just finished his novel on Henry [...]
Brigid prevailed powerfully with the heathen because she was as human as the heathen. That is to say, she never ignored those roots of our being that are common to all humanity. One of the secrets of Patrick’s outstanding success as a missionary was his masterly solution of that evangelizing difficulty called the “adaptation” problem. [...]
Christ is not a part of the Church; rather, the Church might be called a part of Christ, grafted upon Him, living by Him and for Him, suffering with Him in order to rule with Him. To say that the Easter observances are the center of the ecclesiastical year leaves much untold: they are the [...]
The woman's life was meant to be lived at least on a human basis of justice. In the divine life of charity, she attains her fullest development, her fullest happiness; for here justice and love rule, not strength. On such a basis, she has open to her a life of fullest perfection, the kind of [...]
Josef Weiger is called, as are not many, to speak of Mary—to speak of her from the depths of his heart, knowing well her greatness to be unique. He is called to speak of her in that sober recollection of Christian Truth which, as St. Teresa demands, shall picture our Lady’s life only as it [...]
The affair of Galileo was not played out in the atmosphere of inquisitorial terror that some writers have imagined; one cannot even say that the high ecclesiastical authorities posed systematically as enemies of scientific progress. How did the Church react in face of perils she could not ignore? The secular arm, whose aid she had [...]
"The most deadly foes of the Catholic religion have always waged a fierce war, but without success, against this Chair; they are by no means ignorant of the fact that religion itself can never totter and fall while this Chair remains intact, the Chair which rests on the rock which the proud gates of hell [...]
The fairytale cannot help having some meaning; if it have proportion and harmony it has vitality, and vitality is truth. The beauty may be plainer in it than the truth, but without the truth the beauty could not be, and the fairytale would give no delight. Were I asked, “What is a fairytale?” I should [...]