The very finding of a Child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger—is this not a miracle in itself? Then there is the miracle when a particular mission, hidden in a person’s heart, really reaches its goal, bringing God’s peace and joy where there were nothing but despair and resignation; when someone succeeds in [...]
What kind of education would enable a child to progress in the rational understanding of the world without losing his poetic and artistic appreciation of it? Beauty in the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education by Stratford Caldecott (178 pages, Angelico Press, 2012) Stratford Caldecott’s Beauty in the Word is like no book in the genre of [...]
The bonds among the Church, the Holy Family, and the “domestic church” founded on the sacrament of marriage are intimate and profound. In a host of formal and informal pronouncements and teachings, Pope John Paul II consistently underlined the central importance of the family as the basic cell of human society, and sacramental marriage as the sole foundation [...]
As one awaits renewal, the figure of Hans Urs von Balthasar and the integration of faith and culture which he achieved in his life and in his work guide wayfarers in that dark night, a beacon of light pointing the way to spiritual renewal of the culture—a light, which Balthasar himself would no doubt be [...]
What the faith of the Catholic Church can offer is a framework—intellectual, imaginative, and moral—for the pursuit of all the good that pertains to human destiny, and its effective bestowal in the grace of conversion. The Church civilizes while she evangelizes. But she evangelizes first. Secularisation is far more of a challenge to Christianity in [...]
The recovery of fatherhood is not merely a political and sociological challenge, to be met by strengthening the legislation that keeps families together, deters separation, and insists that a man takes more responsibility for his children. What needs to be recovered is a vision, a sense of responsibility, a “creative vow.” The collapse of marriage in [...]
Architecture, just like sacred music or art, must fulfill its highest calling, aiding the participant in seeing the glory of God. An architecture that is ordered to fulfill only its human, or even liturgical use, fails its higher purpose. The theological work of twentieth-century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar has only recently begun to take [...]
Authentic human creativity offers an image of divine creativity. Its purpose-to bring about a civilization of love to give glory to God-can only be achieved when freedom is properly understood as the received gift by the Son from the Father. For David Schindler this trinitarian economy offers the only model by which any human economy, [...]
The profound Germano-Italian philosopher and theologian Romano Guardini (1885-1968) remains one of the most unsung heroes of twentieth-century conservatism. His reputation revived a bit during the all-too brief pontificate of Benedict XVI as so much of Ratzinger’s thought came from Guardini, directly and indirectly. But, he and his work should stand much higher than they [...]
Through your creation, O Lord, goes a voice that reminds us of something that is above everything created. The things and their ordering, earth, sun and stones, seem to be pure reality, but our heart knows that they proceed from your holy freedom, and are gifts that should always be accepted afresh. And so they [...]
The burden of Theodore Roszak’s “Where the Wasteland Ends” is to explode the myth that the problems attendant upon the technocratic society can be resolved by technology. Where The Wasteland Ends: Politics And Transcendence In Postindustrial Society, by Theodore Roszak (492 pages, Doubleday, 1972) The burden of this book is to explode the myth that [...]
When the law reckons with the matter of life, it inevitably reckons with its own foundation and its own essence. When we attempt to define life in law, in other words, we are necessarily, though implicitly, defining law in an analogous sense at the same time. The background assumption of my brief essay is that [...]
Every being is good because it is created. To be created is to be loved into existence by God. Every creature is thus good in itself, both because it is loved by God and because, as a participant in this love of God for it, each creature also loves itself. Because all creatures share in [...]
The logic of individualism may now almost be played out in the West. In the society which we see all around us, people are brought up to think of themselves as free floating social particles, individuals whose only fulfillment lies in choice. The only alternative now to accepting the dissolution of the self is to [...]