Although we are halflings, we cannot remain halflings. We must either grow towards the wholeness of holiness or we must shrivel into the wreckage that Pride will make of our lives. Doing nothing is the sin of omission which leads to decay. We can either be Ring-bearers or Ring-wearers. We can either take up our [...]
Shakespeare's age was one in which sin was put at the service of secular tyranny and in which those who sought to practice the fullness of the Faith were held in scorn and punished by the enforcement of draconian laws. It was an age in which the battle for religious liberty was a matter of [...]
The Poles are an iron-forged people, shaped into a sword of faithful resilience in the heat of battle, caught between the anvil of warfare and the hammer of conquest. Furthermore, this faithful resilience has been shaped by the resilience of the Faith, the indomitable adherence of the Polish people to the Catholic Church which is [...]
The Nazi Empire fell. The Soviet Empire fell. And now a new globalist empire is in the ascendant. It will also have its day, its pride preceding its own fall, but who knows how much damage will be done before it comes crashing down? In my recent essay for the Imaginative Conservative, “Bad Ideas Have [...]
The Enlightenment's misreading of man and history has led to a reductionist understanding of human society. This, in turn, has led to the reduction of the human person to that of being a mere subject, or dare we say, guinea pig. The consequences of such a bad idea are clear enough. It leads and has [...]
Henri de Lubac distilled Dostoevsky’s importance to our own times: "Yes, Dostoevsky was a prophet: because he not only revealed to man the depths that are in him but opened up fresh ones for him, giving him, as it were, a new dimension; because, in this way, he foreshadowed a new state of humanity." For [...]
Avellina Balestri's "Saplings of Sherwood" has as its setting the area surrounding Sherwood Forest during the years when Robin Locksley and Maid Marian were children and later teenagers. This is a truly masterful piece of storytelling and as near to the real or legendary Robin Hood as any of us is likely to get. There [...]
How on earth did we stray so far from the paths of wisdom that we find ourselves in this God-forsaken place that is our modern world? I am fond of telling the story of an American tourist who gets himself hopelessly lost somewhere in the wilds of the west of Ireland. In desperation, he stops [...]
For all its levity, there is gravitas enough in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." Its all-too-evident lesson is that those who succumb to the madness of erotic love, spurning chastity, will find themselves “enamored of an ass.” Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. So says G. K. Chesterton. On the other hand, as Chesterton [...]
The Jesuit poet and martyr Saint Robert Southwell was executed in London on February 20, 1595, shortly before Shakespeare is thought to have written Romeo and Juliet. Since there is abundant evidence to suggest that Shakespeare knew Southwell and that he admired Southwell’s poetry, it is worth examining the evidence for Southwell’s influence on Shakespeare’s [...]
For most people, the name of Sir Alec Guinness is associated with his playing of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy. Such an association is understandable enough but it does scant justice to Sir Alec’s true legacy as one of the greatest actors of the twentieth century. He was a fine Shakespearean actor, [...]
Quite simply, William Baer's "Advocatus Diaboli" is contemporary Christian fiction at its finest. It is much more than a mere murder mystery. It is a voyage of discovery, a spiritual adventure, which takes us deeper into the mysteries of faith. Recreational reading is one of the joys of life. It’s such a pleasure, at the [...]
What I experienced at a recent postmodern production in the park was Shakespeare in the dark, devoid of the living presence of goodness, truth, and beauty that flows from The Bard’s Muse. No matter. Shakespeare still lives in the timeless truth and beauty of his works, and he laughs at the folly of those modern [...]
Tall tales are still being told. The light still shines. The torch is still being handed from generation to generation. Thanks be to God, the giver of the light, and thanks be to Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, and all other legend-makers and torchbearers of tradition. Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme of things not found [...]