O think me worth thine anger, punish me, Burn off my rusts, and my deformity, Restore thine image, so much, by thy grace, That thou mayst know me, and I’ll turn my face. –John Donne, from “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward” What is the Christian to do when faced with secular thought that speaks truth [...]
What I have found among young evangelicals is a deep level of dissatisfaction at the church’s lack of spiritual power. I can’t emphasize enough how galvanizing a vision of spiritual warfare can be for millennials, in the positive sense of realigning the church as a center of resistance to dark forces. As an English professor [...]
Immortal Combat: Confronting the Heart of Darkness, by Dwight Longenecker (160 pages, Sophia Institute Press, 2020) It was, I believe, C.S. Lewis who said, speaking of the mediaeval mind and culture, that “the very air was thick with angels.” If, however, angels are real and not merely figments of the imagination, mediaeval or otherwise, the [...]
Our sense of time is actively shifting in this virus-ridden world. The quickness and ease of getting what we want—information, groceries, entertainment, medicine—is in constant flux. Forget wanting. What is it we really need for ourselves and our families? […]
Some articles must be published at one time and not another, either because their stories are simply of the moment or because circumstances reveal them to be impossible for the moment. “‘Dying for Sex’ podcast follows terminal cancer patient’s wild sexcapades” is one of them. Published in the New York Post on March 4, a [...]
If we make the most of the coronavirus lockdown, we will take time to assess our whole lives. The crisis could awaken all of us and be the tipping point for a major reversal in the world’s moral and spiritual decadence. I was first introduced to the riches of Benedictine spirituality when a kind Catholic [...]
To cast off our name is to cast off who we are. By embracing a name, crying out to it, we somehow do the opposite. We embed it into ourselves. With every repetition of the Sacred Name, we change the entire cosmos, and we change ourselves. “As the most effective prayer the Church Fathers use [...]
The way to preach the greatness of what Christians call Lent is to preach the demanding side of it. Tell those around you to give things up until it hurts a bit, till they feel an ache inside that they now can’t pretend to fill with double-stuffed Oreos and beers and binge-watched television series. Then [...]
C.S. Lewis once wrote that “of all the bad men, religious bad men are the worst.” Reflecting on the various revelations in the Church within the past year that involved poor leadership, hypocrisy, and scandalizing behavior to say the least, it is hard not to think of the words of C.S. Lewis and recall Dante’s [...]
Rod Dreher’s book, “The Benedict Option,” has gone on to become an international cultural event. Yet, today, it is not clear whether the book has had any influence on Church institutions and leadership. Has the Benedict Option then been a failure? Should other “options” be considered? Rod Dreher’s book The Benedict Option, a New York [...]
Lent is an extended occasion for us to re-examine characteristic and mostly unconscious feelings of “entitlement,” that buzzword of our day... Lent is once again upon us—and not a moment too soon. When Ash Wednesday comes, even mild fasting and abstinence wake us up and reveal all kinds of things we have taken for granted. [...]
Solitude takes us out to deep and spacious waters where we see that silence is one of our greatest gifts and blessings, in which we discover not only ourselves but God as well. It’s striking the number of books coming out recently on the subject of silence; it must be a felt need in our [...]
Oh, love to some is like a cloud, To some as strong as steel, For some a way of living, For some a way to feel, And some say love is holding on And some say letting go, And some say love is everything And some say they don’t know. John Denver (Perhaps Love) [...]
There is within the human heart the need to set out on pilgrimage as if there is a power unlocked in the journey. There is a sense of seeking and finding—that through one’s visit to the holy places there will be growth in grace, enlightenment, and new inspiration… Four years ago my friend Joseph Pearce [...]