The two principal writers (Jefferson the author and Adams the orator) of the Declaration died on its fiftieth anniversary. This has become a sort of cute, trivial point to us two hundred years later. But to the Americans of the day, it was astounding, surely confirmation that God smiled upon the Declaration and upon America. [...]
'Twas the week before finals and all through the school All the students were panicked and losing their cool. The deadlines flew by because no one would heed The dates in the syllabus no one would read. The children were buried nose-deep in their studies While visions of failure plagued them and their buddies. But [...]
Contemplation is the prayer in which our love is directed toward God in Christ, where it is purified and refined until it sufficiently resembles His love for the union for which we yearn to take place. Without the infused virtues and the fruits and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that were given in contemplation, [...]
Advent is a season for stillness, for quiet, for discernment. It is a season of active waiting, straining forward, listening, attentive and finely tuned. Its good to keep a quiet space, a sacred time, an untrammelled sanctuary away from the pressures, to be still and hear again one’s deepest yearnings for a saviour. I hope [...]
Although Pythagorean mathematics bears little resemblance to what we find in today’s textbooks, its foundation was laid by ancient lovers of wisdom. By rediscovering its original significance, mathematics might guide our minds not toward engineering aimed at mastering nature, but toward contemplation, preparing us for deeper contact with the realm of spirit and its magnificent, [...]
When was the last time that a homily made you cry? Tears of frustration and boredom do not count. What I am asking is this: when was the last time that preaching moved you so greatly that you shed tears of love? Perhaps it was at Mass, a holy hour, a conference, a piece of [...]
Architects and homeowners have long assumed that the only way to keep houses cool and comfortable is to equip them with central air conditioning. However, as electric rates increase, many homeowners are looking for alternatives, especially in very hot climate zones. Some have resorted to so-called passive homes that rely upon massive amounts of insulation, [...]
All nations need reminders that even their best ideals, though worth defending, do not earn them chosen nation status. Reading C.S. Lewis’ “That Hideous Strength” and Langston Hughes’ “Let America Be America Again” in light of each other could rouse those in need of both a restoration of confidence in the goodness of the American [...]
The creation of Thanksgiving was no uncontested process but a fight emerging from antebellum crises over slavery and American nationalism. In November 1859, a Washington, DC alderman from Capitol Hill violently opposed the mayor’s request to declare a Thanksgiving public holiday. By this point, annual celebrations had become traditional and twenty-five governors already proclaimed the [...]
When your bird reaches the table this Thursday, you can ask your table mates if they know why the bird is called a turkey, and then—if you have read this essay—impress them with your encyclopedic knowledge. You remember the Dad joke at this time of year: “We’re having an international Thanksgiving. Mom’s serving Turkey on [...]
There is no feast of Thanksgiving in either the British national or church calendars, but it seems to me a good thing for any nation to set aside a day for the gratitude which is in truth the root of every other virtue. So on American Thanksgiving, I am re-posting here an Englishman’s act of [...]
Flannery O’Connor knew that her readers would only begin to see the beauty of a life with Christ by seeing the ugliness of a world without Him. Upon my arrival in the United States at the beginning of the present century, I was woefully ignorant of the American literature of the previous century. Today, almost [...]
The word for truth in Greek means the absence of forgetting—the sudden recollection, the vivid recovery. In the great tradition of the West, when those who study it retrieve immense and priceless knowledge from forgetfulness, we find the hope of renewal. As we approach Thanksgiving this year, the coronavirus phenomenon helps us value rightly what [...]
Human beings have an emotional and psychological need to convert history into a science, for we have longed to have life and the world make sense. Yet, there are no general laws of history that can give precise measurement to human thought or action. There is for historians only the intelligible disorder of life, the [...]