Prayer is a process of continual inner conversion that involves gently trying to turn, open and surrender the heart to God. As the process is practised, the heart is made accessible to the heart of God, and his love shafts down to purify and empty it so that Christ can come to birth again in [...]
Marriage is meant to be a bond breakable only by death, because love, by its nature, can be measured neither by space nor time. And yet, despite the ideal of marriage, the hard actualities of life make it end sometimes in dismal ruin and failure. A moment comes when the bonds once meant to be [...]
Evangeline is the spirit of those millions of people in multifarious cultures who have been expelled from their homes through ethnic cleansing or other acts of tyranny. She is the spirit of hope that endures and is patient. She haunts those who believe in ghosts. I believe in ghosts. It’s not that I have any [...]
Two great works of republican literature, though separated by almost exactly a century, give us an important insight into the republican mind. The first, Joseph Addison’s play “Cato,” found a receptive and devoted audience among American founders such as George Washington, Nathan Hale, and Patrick Henry. During his famous and well-attended University of Pennsylvania lectures [...]
Day in and day out, Mario sat begging for alms. Whether in the heat of a Roman summer or during the humid wintry days, he would sit patiently outside the seminary gate atop the Janiculum Hill. Every morning as I left for class, the routine was the same: “Buongiorno, Mario. Tutto bene?” With a kind [...]
If you’re feeling depressed about the culture around you, Dr. Elliott has a prescription for you: one full dose of Whit Stillman’s 2011 film, Damsels in Distress, followed by tap dancing. I am perfectly serious. This charming story unfolds with a group of quirky college girls on the campus of Seven Oaks, a fictitious Ivy [...]
The purpose of education has not remained the same over the course of roughly four centuries. By the early 20th century, education for Protestantization and Americanization began to give way to something called "progressive education.” Not surprisingly, it is progressive education that Richard Weaver targets. Published in 1964, Richard Weaver’s Visions of Order: The Cultural [...]
By his own testimony, Christ came that we might live fully (John 10:10). Anything less seems a waste. And I want to live. I want to really live. I don’t want to live for things that, ultimately, don’t fulfill. I want to live for those things that never fade (1 Cor 9:24-26). Living isn’t ultimately about accomplishments, experiences, [...]
The book donation program at my library is not just a means of receiving books; it has also become, even more, a mechanism for disposing of excess. As a volunteer, you think of yourself as cultivating a neat little garden, not unlike that small monastic library of the Middle Ages. Every Wednesday I head over [...]
Some observations: 1. The singular (classic) Greek contribution to liberty is freedom of the mind. That means, more or less, the freedom of Socrates. 2. Well, there’s also the freedom of the citizen. The freedom to participate in ruling and so be more than a merely material or economic or tribal or familial being. 3. [...]
One looks forward to the completion of Pat Buchanan's memoirs, especially the insider tales of the Nixon and Reagan years. He has always been courageous and compelling in debate and unflappable in his commitment to conservative populist principles. He, perhaps more than any public figure, waged the culture wars with grit, determination, and eloquence. Patrick [...]
The story of the Indian Wars for the American West in Peter Cozzens’s “The Earth Is Weeping” contains the tragic patterns of all human history. This history, like all real history, lives once we awaken memory and see the real contours of what lies before us. One of the compensations for long hours in the [...]
In the mystery of his Incarnation, the Son took flesh in the womb of a Virgin and thus united our human nature to his divine nature. By his saving actions, the God-man Jesus Christ leavens our humanity with the divine ingredient of hope that it might be raised up to the place prepared for it [...]
Were the actions of Thomas Jefferson as president consistent with his constitutional theory? David N. Mayer’s account raises fundamental but unanswered questions. The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson by David N. Mayer (416 pages, University of Virginia Press, 1995) Thomas Jefferson continues to fascinate scholars. A voluminous literature examines his long public career and extensive comments on [...]