During this season of Lent it is helpful to reflect on how mimetic desire—defined as “imitation envy"—connects with and influences the classic seven deadly sins. The French thinker Rene Girard had a seminal insight which has shed light on just about every aspect of human endeavor from theology and anthropology to economics, politics, psychology, and [...]
Lent is a time of abstinence, fasting, and almsgiving, in which we can release the baggage of the lesser goods that we have accrued. But it is more primarily and fundamentally a time of prayer and of growth in our attraction to the one goodness—Goodness Itself. It is somewhat ironic that Lent, the season in [...]
Robert Hugh Benson's "Initiation" is a novel which delves and dives deep into the mystery of suffering. Its theme, and the reader’s following of the purgatorial steps of the “initiation,” is perfect for those seeking to take the purgatorial steps on the Lenten pilgrimage to Golgotha. The literary reputation of Robert Hugh Benson, one of [...]
In “Ash Wednesday,” T.S. Eliot repudiated his ironic style along with his despairing and nihilistic view of the world. When he wrote it, he was turning from the hell of the wasteland of unbelief to receive his ashes and begin his long Lent. T.S. Eliot’s secret baptism in 1927 marked one of the most remarkable [...]
Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual [...]
Would I have stood by the cross? Would I have still hoped, if I had watched my Incarnate Hope die? In this world, we suffer from our sins and the sins of others. Jesus comes to us—just as he came to the first disciples—and tells us that he has come to triumph over all the [...]
The Stations of the Cross, which form the core of my book Sounding the Seasons, are intended to be read on Good Friday. We will read the 13th and 14th tomorrow on Holy Saturday and then on Easter Morning we will have the 15th’ resurrection’ station and also a new villanelle that I have written for [...]
IV Jesus meets His Mother This darker path into the heart of pain Was also hers whose love enfolded him In flesh and wove him in her womb. Again The sword is piercing. She, who cradled him And gentled and protected her young son Must stand and watch the cruelty that mars Her maiden making. [...]
Here are ten glorious pieces of music for Holy Week that will remind you that there is beauty in this world. As a lifelong Catholic, I’ve always taken Holy Week seriously in a personal way, and the reading of “The Passion of the Lord” on Palm Sunday always deeply affects me. You’d think I’d never heard the [...]
Now, in Passiontide, Christ becomes all the more visibly, our companion. We walk with him and see him face and overcome our own worst fears, we see him take on, in us and for us, the pain the frailty, the fear the failure, and the death itself that haunt and shadow our life. We stay [...]
This strange Holy Week has begun in tears: tears of frustration, tears of lament, and for so many who have been cruelly bereaves, tears of grief. It’s hard to see through tears, but sometimes its the only way to see. Tears may be the turning point, the springs of renewal, and to know you have [...]
The Cross is fearful to the natural eye and distasteful to the natural heart, but you have a new light and a new heart. We hold on to Jesus by God’s strength, not our own. This is not a time to be timid—Christian hope has the daring of a lover, a face “set like flint.” [...]
Through fear of pain, struggle, and of being ridiculed by others, most do not achieve the greatness that lies within their reach. If we turn to Christ and ask him for his magnanimity, he will grant us this crowning virtue and his own great strength to achieve it. Meditating on the Passion of Christ is [...]
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). These words of unbelief may strike us, coming from a man who followed Jesus for three years. But while it’s easy for us [...]