That is a good thought, my dear boy: Satan does not sleep till noon. No no no. Keep that uppermost in your mind before retiring each night and you will find that in a surprisingly short time you will be bounding out of bed in the morning. Rising will become, not a chore, but a [...]
The conventional narrative of “The Schism of 1054” may attract us by its simplicity and apparent explanatory power. But besides serving as a dubious justification for an ongoing situation, this narrative fails to capture the variety, obscurity, and complexity of human nature inspired by religious conviction that comes into view through the study of history [...]
All great literature, in poetry and prose, is part of the great conversation which has animated Western civilization for almost three thousand years. Anything purporting to be literature which owes nothing to this great conversation is rootless and meaningless. It is not worth reading because it was not worth writing. It has nothing to say. [...]
Roman death masks—called “imagines”—were actually wax models impressed directly on the face during life, and they bore a remarkable likeness to the person. Displayed during the funerals of the elite, they served as a link between the present and the past and were meant to inspire attendees to patriotic virtue. The recent defacement of statues [...]
Two themes (among many) lurk behind almost every corner in Ray Bradbury's fictional soul: dystopian conformity and autumnal imagination. An American original, Ray Bradbury will almost certainly enjoy a high reputation for centuries to come. The future will remember him for hundreds of short stories and at least four profound novels of gothic Americana: Fahrenheit [...]
Not only does the example of Saint Monica illustrate the power of prayer but it reaches into the very meaning of motherhood as well. You did not choose me, but I chose you…” (John 15:16) Despite all the steps people will insist on taking to create union with God, clearing away whole lumberyards of spiritual debris [...]
The political circus that rode into Dayton, Tennessee in the summer of 1925 must have been something, even though its conclusion was anti-climactic. Still, the case lives on, as it has for a century now. Did life come from nothing or something: or from Someone? The summer of 2025 should not come to an end [...]
I am frequently surprised when Christians speak as if civilization and life on this earth is going to continue in perpetuity. Are we not living and striving for another and better life—one conditioned, it’s true, by what we do here in this earthly city? My basic outlook on life could be characterized thus: pessimistic about [...]
We are bombarded by a constant stream of news concerning supposed mistreatment of and microagression against popular minorities, but little is said about the very real persecution of Christians. On June 22, a suicide bomber attacked the Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elias in the Damascus suburb of Dweila, killing 25 members of the congregation. [...]
Do you believe in a higher power, something that transcends the “human organism”? If this question is trivialized or ignored, we enter the very sound and soul of despair. Anthropology is the scientific study of human beings. Philosophy, literally translated, is the love of wisdom. Philosophical anthropology, then, is the scientific study of humans for [...]
Consumption of content is increasingly through audiobooks, podcasts, or YouTube videos—in other words, through oral tradition. We may thus be witnessing a technological revolution that not only takes us forward into a brave new world of communication, but also backward to the time of the Old Testament patriarchs. A few years ago I was able [...]
All natural loves, even love of the land, must suffer death and burial in the raw world and the winter of this life. But Hilaire Belloc, who “received the sacrament of that wide and silent beauty” of his native Sussex at night, was confident that he would see it and his departed friends face to [...]
It may sound fine to proclaim a new age in which the primacy of love was to be paramount, as it was in the beginning. But it must not be forgotten that the love Francis was talking about was God’s love, the love that can change all things including us. It was thanks to St [...]
Based on the Biblical tale of the young Israelite woman who cuts off the head of the barbarian invader Holofernes, Antonio Vivaldi’s sole surviving oratorio, "Juditha Triumphans," was written to celebrate the 1716 victory of the Republic of Venice over the Turks. "Juditha triumphans devicta Holofernis barbarie" (Judith triumphant over the barbarians of Holofernes), RV 644, is an oratorio by Antonio Vivaldi, the only [...]