While Satan and his legions are known for their subtlety, of late it would seem they have become rather bold. From the Minneapolis shooter drawing a picture of himself staring into a mirror with his reflection not human but a beast with horns, to the recently resigned senior physician at the Centers for Disease Control proudly displaying photos of himself on [...]
From Modest Mussorgsky's "Songs and Dances of Death" to Oliver Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time," here are ten great classical pieces about death and the end of this world. They may or may not provide you comfort. 1. Songs and Dances of Death, by Modest Mussorgsky A song cycle for voice (usually bass [...]
Poetry offers a unique antidote to the superficiality that dominates American culture. Poetry calls us back to tradition and calls us out of the shallows into the deeper water of human experience. It draws us toward transcendence. It is tempting to decry our age as the worst of times. Anyone who has studied history, however, [...]
Charlie Kirk's assassin symbolizes a subculture of rebellion found in recent shooters: full of dark, video-gaming, and Satanic themes. Indeed, like the biblical Cain, the assassin took his rage against the moral law to the point of killing one who embodied the ideal of that law. The assassination of Charlie Kirk is forcing the nation [...]
When one dares to enter the country of other men’s souls in quest of understanding about the nature of virtue, he enters a dangerous world. When one dares to enter the country of other men’s souls in quest of understanding about the nature of virtue, he enters a dangerous world, especially when that world is [...]
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 [...]
Should honor and fame no longer be ends of ambition in such a world? The ancient philosophers doubted the ultimate merit of fame, but they also looked for the most spirited students, those most inclined to “undertake extensive and arduous enterprises." In response to my essay about baptizing ambition, a friend from Boston College recommended [...]
By my reckoning, Frank Martin and Arthur Honegger were among the greats of 20th-century classical music. Fusing tradition with the new, they created works rich in humanity that leave a deep impression on the listener. Instead of throwing tonality out the window, they enriched it with fascinating new sounds, and they never forgot music’s human [...]
Edvard Grieg composed his "Ave Maris Stella" ("Hail Star of the Sea"), for mixed choir, in 1898. Its lyrics, in Latin and English, are below the embedded video. Ave, maris stella, Dei mater alma, atque semper virgo, felix cœli porta. Sumens illud "Ave" Gabrielis ore, funda nos in pace, mutans Evæ nomen Solve vincla reis, [...]
Each of us, in the face of an atrocity, can only pray to the Madonna with the Sword-Pierced Heart, seeking the mercy of her Son for sinful humanity and seeking to share in her sorrow for those innocent victims of man’s inhumanity to man. And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and [...]
Who would have thought that a teacher might convince a student that living a virtuous life was both a challenge and an adventure? David Hein apparently has done just that in the classroom, and those classroom teachers who read his book might well come to learn from him and agree with him—and do the same [...]
To counteract the disorder of a city engulfed by internal strife and upheaval, we in the West would do well to rediscover the true meaning of vocation. We may cultivate an abundant yield simply by applying the virtues we associate with the master craftsman—diligence, recognition of quality, and striving for mastery—to whatever we do, whether [...]
The traditional liturgy may be a surprising magnet for disparate groups to be united because it is so ancient. It transcends culture because of both its antiquity and its ubiquity. It also transcends personal taste and cultural fashions. When I was a student at Oxford, my parents came to visit, and on her first venture [...]
No piece of classical music grips my ballet-dancer’s imagination like Aram Khachaturian’s “Waltz” from his Masquerade suite. Like his Piano Concerto that I wrote about HERE in 2017, it doesn’t start so much as drop the listener smack into a musical extravaganza, where the lines between listener and music have been erased and, oh Lord, I’m inside it and [...]