Shakespeare shows us that there are none so blind as those who will not see because they prefer the darkness of sin to the light of virtue… All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many [...]
The Shakespeare scholar who crossed swords with C.S. Lewis describes Lewis in the early 1950s, at the height of his fame, as “a red-faced, egg-headed, portly, jolly, middle-aged man, who was (like Old King Cole) fond of his pipe and his glass of beer.” Father Peter Milward Father Peter Milward SJ, who died [...]
If our making of beautiful things shows the image in us of the Maker of all beautiful things, we can see that the imagination is itself a shining forth of God’s image in us. And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness…. And God created man to his own image: to [...]
Modern man thinks poetry a waste of time. He doesn’t know the difference between that which takes time and that which wastes it… What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where [...]
Ultimately the reason we should rejoice in the love of laughter as we rejoice in the love of friends is that laughter, like love, is a gift of God. There’s nothing worth the wear of winning Than laughter and the love for friends. These famous lines by Hilaire Belloc are personal favourites of mine but, [...]
Friendship, or philia, is one of the “loves” that C.S. Lewis elucidates and celebrates in his book, The Four Loves, the others being familial love (storge), sexual love (eros) and Divine love (caritas or agape). Although not the greatest or highest of the loves, Lewis saw friendship as the noble coming together of those who [...]
Modern England is so secular in her orientation and so narcissistic in her hedonism that she treats her own heritage with scornful and supercilious neglect. This was made painfully clear to me this January when I returned to my native land to film a documentary on the great Catholic poet, Francis Thompson. Described by Chesterton [...]
It is sometimes said that religion and politics are the two topics that should not be discussed in polite company. The result is that nothing of importance is ever discussed, reducing the conversation of “polite company” to the level of the banal, at best, or to the level of gossip, at worst. And yet the [...]
Throughout history, poetry has been inextricably interwoven with praise. This being so, let’s take a lightning tour of the major poets of civilization. Beginning in the pre-Christian era we see how the poets of Athens and Jerusalem prepared the way for the coming of Christ with their creative gifts. Homer invoked his Muse, the divine [...]
One of the biggest mistakes that a student of history can make is to confuse the so-called English “Reformation” with its namesake on the continent. Whereas the Protestant Reformation in Europe was animated by the genuine theological differences that separated those who followed Luther or Calvin from those who accepted the apostolic and ecclesial authority [...]
One thing in this world is different from all other. It has a personality and a force. It is recognised, and (when recognised) most violently loved or hated. It is the Catholic Church. Within that household the human spirit has roof and hearth. Outside it, is the Night. —Essays of a Catholic by Hilaire Belloc (1931). [...]
The reason that Shakespeare is not of an age but for all time is that he serves the Holy Spirit and not the spirit of the age. Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie [...]
Considering that the use of words is dangerous and their abuse perilous, it should come as no surprise that “paganism” is a particularly dangerous word. The danger lies in the dangerous lies that arise when the word is employed thoughtlessly. It is, for instance, employed thoughtlessly by Christians when they describe any hedonist or heathen [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien’s love of the Anglo-Saxon language and culture is legendary among both Tolkien scholars and aficionados, as is his hatred of all things French. His biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, wrote that he suffered from “Gallophobia.”[1] His student and friend, George Sayer, commented that when Tolkien stayed with him and his wife, he very politely ate [...]