Someone I know recently told me about a novel she’d been reading. The plot has an archaeologist searching for the bones of Christ. The novel details the discovery of an ancient skeleton near Jerusalem with marks consistent with death by crucifixion. My friend explained the significance of this hypothetical scenario: if Christ did not rise [...]
If suffering seems to mock at life, death’s mockery of life is more blatant still. It is very curious that any man constructing either a way of life for himself or a larger system of life for society should ignore death altogether. Death, after all, is a fact. It was not invented by the Catholic [...]
Begin your meditation by primarily using the Gospels to centre your whole attention on the person of Jesus so that knowledge can gradually turn to love. Affective Prayer begins when the sparks of love that are generated there begin to lead upwards and into the Risen Christ. After the Protestant Reformation, a new terminology began [...]
The whole “woke” agenda has become a delightful farce, warranting not so much bemusement as amusement. Take, for example, the recently announced decision by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to flagellate Shakespeare for his alleged role in promoting “white supremacist imperialism”. The SBT, which manages historical properties in Stratford-upon-Avon, has promised to “decolonize” its museum collections [...]
Did Archbishop Fulton Sheen prophesy about these times? In a talk 76 years ago, Bishop Fulton Sheen appeared as visionary as prophets of old. “We are at the end of Christendom.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen said during a talk in 1947. Making clear he didn’t mean Christianity or the Church, he said, “Christendom is economic, political, [...]
Having then, brethren, asked the Lord who it is that shall dwell in His tabernacle, we have heard what He commands to those who wish to dwell there; and if we fulfill those commands, we shall be heirs of the kingdom of heaven. […]
Johann Sebastian Bach shows how mind and soul, spirit and body connect. In its complex richness and wholeness his music suggests the unity of faith and reason, science, and imagination. Full of relationships that stimulate the ear and the mind, it expresses the multifold splendor of creation itself. “To strip human nature until its divine [...]
Daniel McInerny’s "Beauty & Imitation" is a superb reactivation not only of Aristotle’s understanding of mimesis but also with an Aquinas enhancement. From the first page forward, in fine prose, McInerny surveys with sincerity and depth the Catholic understanding of the arts, beauty, and sublimity. Despite, or perhaps in part because of its importance and [...]
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush The descending blue; [...]
Hugh Ross Williamson would be no stranger to controversy. It might even be said that he positively courted it, somewhat like Hilaire Belloc in whose footsteps he walked. What do T.S. Eliot, Charles Williams, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Hugh Ross Williamson have in common? The answer is that they were all commissioned to write plays for [...]
On the (Proposed) Sinking of America’s Great Flagship It wasn’t supposed to end this way for America’s flagship, the SS United States: the ship bestowed with the honor of bearing the namesake of her nation; she is, perhaps, the greatest merchant ship to ever be constructed by, and operated under, the American flag. If you [...]
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 [...]
The most important element in European foreign relations throughout the 1920s and during the early 1930s was the desire at all costs to avoid another war. There was among European statesmen a widespread conviction that another war would be infinitely more destructive than the Great War had been, and any alternative seemed preferable. 1. Hitler's [...]
The labors of Saint Patrick are among the greatest of those who have traveled far and wide for the discipleship of Christ. Although it is undoubtedly true that each and every one of the Church’s saints display a faith and virtue which is for all the ages of the world, I would especially believe that [...]