Whether in her present numerous agonies of disorder, America can transcend despair and rebuild her national character is doubtful—impossible in the minds of some. But one thing is certain: It can happen only by fidelity to the American experience of a transcending Christian authority, and fidelity to the finest of her social values, customs, and [...]
At the very beginning of the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius writes that they have been written to enable a person “to conquer oneself.” The way this is done is by embracing the stoicism kept at bay in the early Church but introduced into Christianity at the Renaissance. When most of our school friends were dreaming [...]
For Eric Voegelin, all modern ideologies—left or right—were simply Gnostic attempts to order a disordered world according to ritual and knowledge. This essay concludes my three-essay series on Eric Voegelin (1901-1985). In the first essay, I discussed Voegelin’s own influence on my intellectual development over the past 37 years. I also, rightly or wrongly, questioned [...]
God is a person, not just an idea. When he raises up saints, he does so not to have an ideologue to debate the doubters, but in order to have someone to carry on the work of Christ, who not only preached, but was a living example of what he preached. God raised up Saint [...]
In the midst of a dream, Orual’s doubts are finally answered by the gods. Once Psyche gives her the gift of beauty, and the God of the mountain appears and speaks to her, her ugliness is washed away. It takes all of Orual’s life to come to this point of faith and cleansing, and now [...]
Everyone should have the right to a culture. That means a unique and authentic way of expressing oneself inside a place and community. Unfortunately, this right has long been denied. This denial is especially evident in the world of fashion. Gone are the days when dress reflected a vibrant perception of oneself that found expression [...]
If we still fall into the trap of magical thinking in religious circles today, what is the distinction between true religion and magic? Why is a prayer for God’s protection, healing, or blessing different from a magic spell or invocation? At the start of his seminal work, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Keith Thomas [...]
We need to see Christ’s glory, and while he often chooses not to shine as bright as the sun, the Transfigured Lord reveals himself in every heart. Fear can leave us confused and forgetful of him, but this is the beauty of the Transfiguration. At the heart of Radomyśl Wielki, a tiny town in southern [...]
Happily, our lives are a journey, not a fine art. In knowledge of God and knowledge of self, coupled with detachment, the seed of His word might produce more fruit in us yet. Matthew 13: 18-23 tells us how Jesus understands His own parable of the sower who went to sow his seed. Yet even [...]
Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that we clearly know God through His creation, so how is it that so many can't do just that? In his imaginary account of “The Unthinkable Theory of Professor Green,” a tale as fantastical as anything Mr. G.K. Chesterton has ever spun, we are shown a place [...]
The animating principle of medieval culture, insofar as it is distinct from Antiquity or Modernity, is the conviction that the ultimate and highest reality is found in the unseen realm—which means that the most fundamental and fruitful way to embrace the medieval spirit is to practice the Faith more like an ordinary Christian of the [...]
There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with Irving Babbitt’s work as with that of any serious thinker. The proper question for scholars to ask would appear to be: Do Babbitt’s various concepts faithfully account for the facts of human experience? In other words: Is he providing a scientific analysis of [...]
Daniel McInerny’s novel is a fine effort and an absorbing and satisfying read. But does he meet the challenges facing the writer of modern Catholic fiction: to somehow tiptoe around the masters, but still stand on their shoulders; to avoid the story being pastiche or preachy, while still allowing the tabernacle lamp to glow in [...]
Today in America, people of faith are binding up the unraveled fabric of civil society in tangible ways. We hold the threads individually, but when they are bound together, we can reweave a picture of order and beauty in human souls, woven in the vibrant colors of love. People of faith have given our culture [...]