The Life of the Mind & Heart at Hillsdale College

By |2025-10-21T19:21:55-05:00October 21st, 2025|Categories: Education, Happiness, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Love, Nature of God, Nature of Man|

I had not seen my former student, Adam, for a decade or so after his graduation from Hillsdale College when I ran into him and his young family at the supermarket. "You once asked me" he said, "for what purpose was the soul of man made. I had little in the way of an answer [...]

Seeking the Presence of God With Brother Lawrence

By |2025-10-20T19:06:06-05:00October 20th, 2025|Categories: Catholicism, Hope, Michael De Sapio, Mysticism, Nature of God, Prayer, Senior Contributors|

As institutions crumble around us, our constructed selves are stripped away, and we are more and more reduced to the most basic and existential thing: namely our relationship to God. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection's method for “practicing the presence of God” consisted of keeping up a continuous dialogue with Him in one’s heart. Brother [...]

Awake!

By |2025-10-17T11:03:36-05:00October 17th, 2025|Categories: Catholicism, Easter, Nature of God|

As we rise for our labors each day, the dawn wakes and revives us. But our God needs none to rouse him. If you long for him, it is not to stir him to your aid. It is because he has awoken you. Awake, lyre and harp. I will awake the dawn. (Ps 57:8) It [...]

Listen to St Teresa of Ávila

By |2025-10-14T15:44:12-05:00October 14th, 2025|Categories: Catholicism, Love, Nature of God, Prayer, Sainthood, St. Teresa of Avila, Timeless Essays|

Making the spiritual ascent into God is rather like trying to run up a downward escalator. The moment you stop moving steadily forwards is the moment when you start moving steadily downward. Going forwards means finding daily time to do what St Peter told his listeners to do when he was the first to announce [...]

Afraid to Change

By |2025-10-01T19:42:49-05:00October 1st, 2025|Categories: Catholicism, Love, Nature of God, Peace|

God’s perfect love casts out all fear when we hand ourselves over to him in hope. Why tremble? Why hesitate? When all that can be desired is offered by the one who is powerful to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine. Change is scary. Between the unknowns we can foresee and those [...]

Sources of Authority: The Roots of the Great American Identity Crisis

By |2025-09-14T20:58:01-05:00September 14th, 2025|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, American Revolution, Authority, Catholicism, Christianity, Civil Society, Community, Culture, Nature of God, New Polity, Social Order|

The problem of authority is not merely a political problem or even simply a problem of faith. It instead requires a gathering up of the whole of life, indeed the world in all of its rich multitude of aspects, in relation to its meaning-granting center. Anxious about trends he was witnessing in the ’60s and [...]

Can Transitioning Be Healthcare? A Reflection on Sex as Symbol

By |2025-09-04T17:40:07-05:00September 4th, 2025|Categories: Government, Health, Morality, Nature of God, Nature of Man|

Sexual difference is a symbol of one’s relation to the world, the whole of reality, to all others (and even to oneself), and ultimately to God. Initially, it may seem that the answer to the question that forms the title of this brief reflection would depend on the way one chose to define the first [...]

The Integration of Beauty Into Learning

By |2025-07-22T16:39:50-05:00July 22nd, 2025|Categories: Beauty, Christianity, Education, Liberal Learning, Nature of God|

The absence of beauty in education robs students of their natural curiosity, intuition, and creativity. Beauty provides direction, order, and harmony. Humans are made to desire and perceive beauty, which itself is the mystery of God. Professor Margarita Mooney of Princeton Theological Seminary and the Scala Foundation is a dear friend and brilliant academic. Five [...]

You Are What You Worship

By |2025-04-25T18:52:36-05:00April 25th, 2025|Categories: Catholicism, Nature of God|

The Psalmist has some harsh words for idols, those who make them, and those who worship them. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they [...]

Materialism, Magic, & Miracles

By |2025-04-25T19:17:13-05:00April 23rd, 2025|Categories: Christianity, Dwight Longenecker, Easter, Nature of God, Senior Contributors|

The vast majority of human beings of all races and in every place and at every time have understood that there is such a thing as the miraculous, that strange things do happen, and that our materialist explanations do not explain everything. Some time ago a friend of mine told me a miracle story. He [...]

Believing

By |2025-04-11T16:21:16-05:00April 11th, 2025|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Cluny, Faith, Nature of God|

Believing is something radical, that is to say, different at its roots from “forming an opinion,” or “forming a conviction,” if you like. To make a judgment based on particular knowledge and inferences is a very important and, in innumerable areas, indispensable intellectual activity: but “believing” is a different process. In its content and unfolding, [...]

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