While kneeling to receive Communion, my brother James suddenly felt the presence of his recently deceased friend—for whom the Mass was being said—kneeling beside him. Then James asked the priest what he saw.... I was living in England with my younger brother James when we met an Anglican priest named Father George. Father George had [...]
I have to admit that I did not immediately warm to Karen Ullo’s novel. This was due to my own prejudice against both historical fiction and women’s romance. I was mistaken. Ullo won me over, and I came to admire and root for her protagonist, a tough but tender Frenchwoman. In my continued trawl through [...]
However one solves the mysterious Sword of Michael, it is a reminder to us in our hi-tech age that our ancestors had perhaps more technologies than our iPhones have dreamt of. They had a mystical understanding of the interactions of heaven and earth that we have lost. The ruins of their monasteries, the relics of [...]
Those who think that Christianity is just about propositional assent, or about sentimental emotivism, have already in some way made an idol. They are modern and have departed from the tradition at the deepest levels of the soul. Charity, in the Christian sense of the word, is the power infused into our souls at baptism [...]
At the heart of Owen Barfield’s thought is the concept of participation—the psychic unity between the perceiving self and the external phenomena it encounters. While Barfield’s theories are fascinating, he seems perhaps too pessimistic about humanity’s loss of vision. Owen Barfield was sometimes called “the silent Inkling.” C.S. Lewis called him “the wisest and best [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The three vows of the Benedictine monk are obedience, stability, and conversion of life. In our own ways, we can follow this example, making it real by paying attention to prayer, cracking the books in solid study, and rolling up our sleeves in the honest, hard work of rebuilding what has fallen into despair and [...]
The real problem with most materialists is not that they deny the existence of the invisible realm, but they are cowardly and lazy. They have not had the guts or gumption to follow their disbelief to the end point. Puddleglum is a Marshwiggle. Those who have read The Silver Chair will remember C.S. Lewis’ description [...]
Beauty is there, if only we would heed its call. In the midst of the earthly city, with all its problems, we need to heed the call of the Heavenly City which is right there in front of us. My advice to everyone (writers included): go to church, discover beauty, discover God. Alexander Lucie-Smith [...]
The essential error of the modernist theologians is that they have fallen for the myth of the noble savage. But both the noble savage and the urban savage are simplistic generalities: They express a truth and a lie at the same time. The Amazonian synod of 2019 in Rome revealed what might be called “The [...]
The romanticism in J.R.R. Tolkien’s great saga was inspired partly by the actions of King Jan Sobieski during the Battle of Vienna in 1683, when Christian Europe stemmed the advance of militant Islam. A minor observation in a recent essay began a series of connections that will please Catholics, conservatives, history hounds, and J.R.R. Tolkien [...]
Peter Giersch's "Talking of Michelangelo" is an account of his trip to a French monastery to plunge into a week-long Ignatian retreat. But who wants to read about the inner musings of someone’s religious retreat? Happily, the most likely answer is: You do. Peter Giersch has been a French teacher, a catechist, a business entrepreneur [...]
Several years ago, when I was in Europe leading a pilgrimage tour to England with Joseph Pearce, I learned that the Shroud of Turin was to be on display for veneration in Turin. After the pilgrimage in England I made my way to Italy where I was joined by a friend. After a few days [...]