St Mary Magdalen came very early to the tomb on Easter Morning. There is something crucial in the timing: it was still dark. Mary at this point was still going through a trial that had started with Jesus' arrest. She had very little to sustain her, knowing only the destruction of her Master's body on the [...]
Christ descended into hell to deliver His loved ones from their exile. He came to reward those who, from our first father, Adam, to His own foster-father, St. Joseph, had fought the good fight and had finished the race. The second reading from the Office of Readings for Holy Saturday is taken from an ancient homily on Christ’s [...]
I propose to address the question, how does one survive—and I mean survive as something—in a world that may not? How does one remain sane in a world that is insane; how does one live without fear in a world in which the only certainty is that nothing is certain? "The Speech" was addressed in [...]
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 [...]
For the past quarter of a century I’ve been honoured to edit the St. Austin Review, popularly known as the StAR, a Catholic cultural journal, published six times a year. The StAR was launched in September 2001, the month of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. It appeared in the midst of that darkest of months as [...]
Hope, in reality, is the worst of all evils because it prolongs man’s torment. —Friedrich Nietzsche Both intuition and common wisdom—for we are frequently told to never give up hope—tell us that this statement from Nietzsche is simply wrong. Of course, what Nietzsche especially had in mind was the hope of an afterlife. Disbelieving in [...]
Pope St. John Paul II and Russell Kirk defended freedom within the limits of truth and its authentic or right use. They knew it was crucial to distinguish license and liberty. But they have different approaches to truth. As we discussed the work of Russell Kirk, written in 1954, revised in 1962 and 1988, I [...]
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 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.” [...]
A noise echoes. It comes from the light, from the house, drowning out the sounds of darkness. Trumpets and the sound of the horn? Or is it the sound of those waters stirred up? I’ve left the plow, left my work belt, my hammer, my tools of meager existence—left my unmoving toil. And I took [...]
Saint Therese’s spirituality is grounded firmly in the truth that God’s love comes before anything else in our lives. She understood that any relationship with God must begin from the acknowledgment of our complete dependence on him. This is part of a series entitled, “The Reason for Our Hope.” Read the series introduction here. To see [...]
Hope’s gaze is not a surreal view that distorts and exaggerates reality. Rather, Hope is a God’s-eye view. It is the strength to see all of reality, ignoring none of it, embracing all of it, all through the Father’s own wisdom and love. This is part of a series entitled, “The Reason for Our Hope.” [...]
At the Easter Vigil, with the faithful gathered together in a dark church around the newly lit and christened Paschal Candle, a deacon will chant the Exsultet. This ancient hymn of unrestrained joy contains one seemingly out-of-place, despondent couplet: Our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed. Chilling, sobering words for [...]
In the mystery of his Incarnation, the Son took flesh in the womb of a Virgin and thus united our human nature to his divine nature. By his saving actions, the God-man Jesus Christ leavens our humanity with the divine ingredient of hope that it might be raised up to the place prepared for it [...]