Fairy Tales and Holy Week

By |2024-03-28T09:04:08-05:00March 28th, 2024|Categories: Christianity, Daniel McInerny, Dante, Easter, J.R.R. Tolkien, Timeless Essays|

During this Holy Week, perhaps we can pray that the uncanny pull so many feel toward the ever-after will lead to a deeper reflection on the paradises, earthly and heavenly, from which the fairy stories we enjoy get their point and purpose. One of my favorites passages in Dante’s Purgatorio is when Dante finally reaches [...]

John With Jesus: From Passover to the Garden of Gethsemane

By |2024-03-28T06:07:54-05:00March 27th, 2024|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Catholicism, Christianity, Easter, Gospel Reflection, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

I went with Peter to make the arrangements for the Passover supper. When we arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus had told us to look for a man carrying a pitcher of water. We were to follow him into the house he entered, ask to speak to the owner, and say: “The master asks you where is [...]

Holy Week, Wednesday The Anointing at Bethany

By |2024-03-26T20:16:19-05:00March 26th, 2024|Categories: Audio/Video, Christianity, Easter, Malcolm Guite, Poetry, Timeless Essays|

The Gospel of John (John 12 1-8) tells us of how Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus. I love this intense and beautiful moment in the Gospels, The God of the Cosmos enters as a vulnerable man into all the particular fragility of our human friendships and intimacy. I love the way Jesus responds to Mary’s [...]

Holy Week, Monday: Jesus Weeps Over Jerusalem

By |2024-03-24T21:50:54-05:00March 24th, 2024|Categories: Audio/Video, Christianity, Easter, Lent, Malcolm Guite, Malcolm Guite’s Lenten Sonnets, Poetry, Timeless Essays|

This strange Holy Week has begun in tears: tears of frustration, tears of lament, and for so many who have been cruelly bereaves, tears of grief. It’s hard to see through tears, but sometimes its the only way to see. Tears may be the turning point, the springs of renewal, and to know you have [...]

Classical Music for Holy Week & Easter

By |2024-03-23T20:27:01-05:00March 23rd, 2024|Categories: Antonio Vivaldi, Audio/Video, Easter, Hector Berlioz, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music, Stephen M. Klugewicz, Timeless Essays|

Though Handel's "Messiah" rightly reigns supreme as the king of music for Easter, there are many other seasonal masterpieces that deserve to be heard more often. Here are ten lesser-known classical works that brilliantly depict the dramatic events of Holy Week and Easter Sunday. 1. "Resurrexit" from the Messe Solennelle, by Hector Berlioz (1824) The [...]

Bridging the North-South Divide: Jonathan Edwards and James Thornwell

By |2024-03-21T22:35:03-05:00March 21st, 2024|Categories: American Republic, American Revolution, Christianity, Civil War, History, Religion, South, Theology, Timeless Essays|

The narrative of a North-South divide in American History is a powerful, yet problematic one. However, closer metaphysical inspection of both regions uncovers a series of considerable similarities and ironic connections between the Puritans of New England fully embodied in Jonathan Edwards, and the Presbyterians of the Old South fully embodied in James Thornwell. Their [...]

The Power of Song in Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion”

By |2024-03-20T20:31:26-05:00March 20th, 2024|Categories: Audio/Video, Catholicism, Christianity, Culture, Featured, J.S. Bach, Music, Peter Kalkavage, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

In the “St. Matthew Passion,” Bach indulges his gypsy soul. It is as though Bach, in his broad and deep humanity, his capacity for feeling all kinds and degrees of sorrow and joy, was reaching out to all his fellow human beings, believers and non-believers alike, and impressing upon them what was for him the [...]

America’s First Poet, Anne Bradstreet: A Progressive Conservative

By |2024-03-20T05:40:15-05:00March 19th, 2024|Categories: Christianity, Literature, Poetry, Timeless Essays|

As a settler in seventeenth-century New England and as a female poet, Anne Bradstreet was a trailblazer. A progressive female poet, she also took delight in her role as wife and mother, while remaining committed to her conservative Puritan theology and beliefs. Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672) was a pioneer in two ways: She was a pioneering [...]

Turning the Whole Soul: The Moral Journey of the Philosophic Nature in Plato’s “Republic”

By |2024-03-17T16:52:56-05:00March 17th, 2024|Categories: Andrew Seeley, Culture, Education, Philosophy, Plato, Socrates, Timeless Essays|

According to Socrates, to save Philosophy, to save young souls destined for greatness, to save human society itself, the true, philosophic nature must be freed from the corruptive influences that have formed him and receive the best education. The soul must be turned around. I forgot that we were playing and spoke rather intensely. For, [...]

Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus

By |2024-03-17T08:59:03-05:00March 16th, 2024|Categories: Christianity, Culture, History, Religion, Saint Patrick, Theology, Timeless Essays|

With my own hand I have written and put together these words to be given and handed on and sent to the soldiers of Coroticus. I cannot say that they are my fellow-citizens, nor fellow-citizens of the saints of Rome, but fellow-citizens of demons, because of their evil works. They are blood-stained: blood-stained with the [...]

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