Trinity and Society: Economics & the Search for a “New Way”

By |2023-04-20T16:23:04-05:00April 20th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Communio, Distributism, Economics, Essential, Featured, G.K. Chesterton, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Stratford Caldecott, Timeless Essays|

The logic of individualism may now almost be played out in the West. In the society which we see all around us, people are brought up to think of themselves as free floating social particles, individuals whose only fulfillment lies in choice. The only alternative now to accepting the dissolution of the self is to [...]

A Theology of Gift: The Divine Benefactor & Universal Kinship

By |2023-03-19T19:13:51-05:00March 19th, 2023|Categories: Christian Humanism, Christianity, Economics, Essential, Philosophy, Stratford Caldecott, Timeless Essays|

Creation is an act of the Trinity, and existence is a participation in the Trinity—a participation in the Trinitarian act of giving, receiving, and being given. Each creature called into existence by God receives its own life as a gift. My topic is a theological appreciation of the notion of “gift”, and how this throws [...]

A Sign of Uselessness

By |2023-11-10T08:46:04-06:00March 16th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Essential, Liberalism, Morality, New Polity|

The cloistered nun reminds us that, despite appearances, the purpose of our lives is not to be useful—not for the liberal project, nor even for the Church. Rather, the meaning of every vocation is simply to "be" for God alone, a "being-for that," as the monastery reveals, is never really useless in the end. Liberalism cannot [...]

Educating the Moral Imagination: The Truth of Beauty

By |2023-03-13T15:25:16-05:00March 13th, 2023|Categories: Beauty, Benjamin Lockerd, Essential, Imagination, Literature, Moral Imagination, Poetry, Timeless Essays|

Moral imagination is capable of grasping truth and goodness in ways that move us passionately to live in those objective realities. The answers to the errors of modern times need to be given in philosophy and theology, but it is essential that we also experience the truth imaginatively. Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that [...]

Who Put the West in Western Civilization?

By |2023-02-14T18:25:00-06:00February 14th, 2023|Categories: Christendom, Christianity, Essential, History, Timeless Essays, Western Civilization|

No better champion of jus­tice, fairness, liberty, truth, and human flourishing exists than the complex and poorly known entity we call Western Civi­lization. The West’s weakening or demise would pose a threat to many human virtues. Recovering and extending Western principles remain our best hope for a more humane world. Where did “Western” Civilization come [...]

Do You Know What an Odyssey Is?

By |2023-08-13T19:30:08-05:00January 20th, 2023|Categories: Classics, E.B., Essential, Greek Epic Poetry, Homer, Liberal Learning, Odyssey, Senior Contributors, St. John's College, Timeless Essays, Wisdom|

An odyssey is an adventurous and searching journey, or an intellectual or spiritual quest. It is the proper name for the life of learning. One can shape one’s own odyssey into a journey that lacks neither enchantment nor definition. My title is a question: “Do you know what an odyssey is?” I am asking each of [...]

A Conservatism of Joy, Gratitude, and Love

By |2023-07-10T10:46:20-05:00December 18th, 2022|Categories: Cicero, Classics, Conservatism, Essential, Featured, Russell Kirk, Support The Imaginative Conservative, Timeless Essays, W. Winston Elliott III|

Will you join us in our mission to pursue Truth, Goodness, and Beauty by making a gift to us today? I am yearning for conservative voices offering great depth, thoughtfulness, and dare we say, grace. Is it possible to be strong in conservative principles and to present those principles in a manner which is attractive, [...]

The Christian Cosmology of C.S. Lewis

By |2023-03-06T23:00:00-06:00November 28th, 2022|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Communio, Essential, Featured, Stratford Caldecott, Timeless Essays|

C.S. Lewis described the medieval "cosmos" as “tingling with anthropomorphic life, dancing, a festival not a machine." The modern “universe,” he believed, is devoid of significance, and so we have to give a meaning to our own lives, by willpower if necessary. The old cosmos might not be a very useful map for space travelers, [...]

Beauty: A Necessity, Not a Luxury

By |2023-08-04T09:27:45-05:00November 27th, 2022|Categories: Architecture, Art, Beauty, Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Communio, Essential, Featured, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Language, Pope Benedict XVI, St. John Paul II, Timeless Essays|

“Beauty will save the world.” That remains to be seen. But beauty has saved me, and continues to do so. My experience is that I need saving; it is not a luxury. Just when I am about to succumb to the sadness and living death of nihilism, some piercing ray of beauty breaks open my [...]

We Are Not Our Own: Childhood in a Technological Age

By |2023-08-19T08:31:18-05:00November 17th, 2022|Categories: Catholicism, Christian Humanism, Communio, David L. Schindler, Essential, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Humanum, Pope Benedict XVI, St. John Paul II, Timeless Essays|

Jesus makes becoming like children a condition for entrance into heaven and hence for the everlasting participation in divine life to which we are all invited. The human being is not only to begin as a child, as it were, but also to end as one. Liberal culture’s anti-child practices are bound up with a [...]

Christopher Dawson: Wielding the Sword of the Spirit

By |2023-10-12T05:17:46-05:00October 11th, 2022|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christendom, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Culture, Essential, Featured, Timeless Essays|

Christopher Dawson set himself the task of surveying the history of Western Civilization in the light of a master-idea: that religion is the dynamic force, the basic constituent and the inspiration of all higher human activity, and that therefore the culture of an era depends upon its religion. Looking back over the vast ruins and [...]

What Happened to Excellence?

By |2023-08-02T08:20:20-05:00September 18th, 2022|Categories: Character, Culture, Eric Voegelin, Essential, Featured, George A. Panichas, Great Books, Irving Babbitt, Modernity, Timeless Essays, Virtue|

Excellence predicates aspiration and transcendence, a quest for a higher qual­ity of attainment and, in effect, going beyond the moment. Excellence, which can be defined as the state of excelling and of surpassing merit, is now increasingly one of the lost words of the English language. And increasingly the special qualities that this word de­notes [...]

Gifts From We Know Not Where

By |2023-08-26T16:16:16-05:00September 1st, 2022|Categories: Beauty, Culture, Essential, Featured, Graduation, Great Books, Homer, Mystery, Odyssey|

We can encourage openness of expectation in ourselves and in one another, so that the mysterious gifts of experience, strange exhilarations and wonders, gifts from we know not where, will not be lost on us. A just expectation of life may include an expectation of moments that seem mysterious gifts from we know not where. [...]

Homer’s “Odyssey” Is a Gift

By |2022-08-13T10:36:36-05:00August 13th, 2022|Categories: Classics, Essential, Eva Brann, Featured, Great Books, Homer, Odyssey, St. John's College, W. Winston Elliott III|

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.” So begins Homer’s Odyssey. Long ago I launched my ship in pursuit of the true, the good, and [...]

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