Catholicism
Dante and the Office – The Catholic Thing
Some people have trouble reading Dante’s Commedia. For a “comedy,” it doesn’t seem all that funny. Teachers will tell you it is a “comedy” in the sense that it has a happy ending in Heaven. Some people might chuckle at some of the punishments…
Thoughts About the Vocation of Soldiers
The great French preacher Lacordaire once said the vocation of a soldier is next in dignity to the priesthood, not only because it commissioned him to defend justice on the field of battle and order on the field of peace, but also because it…
Heartburn and Broken Ribs – The Catholic Thing
Philip Neri had the custom of rising late at night or in the first hours of morning, making his way through the sleeping city of Rome, outside the city walls, to the Basilica of Saint Sebastian. There he would descend beneath the church, to the…
Folly in the Seat of Wisdom
Reports out of New York say that the state’s Department of Health has issued warnings to the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, whose order has, for over a century, run a hospice for patients dying of incurable cancer. Indeed, the village where…
The Perennial Question: “Who Is Man?”
Modern philosophy flatters itself by claiming it was responsible for the “turn to the subject,” i.e., the human (and, usually, a very subjective understanding of the human). But focus on the human is hardly a modern discovery. St. Irenaeus, a…
The Replacements or Coming Soon: Mel Gibson’s ‘The Resurrection of the Christ’
About this time next year, Mel Gibson will release the 2-part sequel to The Passion of the Christ. Better late than never, some will say, although not, perhaps, Jim Caviezel, who so memorably played Jesus, and who has, over the two decades…
A Little Wisdom from Toonces
Most of us live at least part of our lives on autopilot. Most of us also, sooner or later, stumble across Albert Einstein’s famous warning: “Doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results, is the definition of…
Ever Ancient, Ever New – The Catholic Thing
St. Augustine famously wrote of having come late to the Beauty that is God: tam antiqua, tam nova (“So ancient, so new”). It’s a brilliant and profound way of expressing the truth that the deepest Good is not in the past or in the future, but by…
On Moderation – The Catholic Thing
St. John Henry Newman discovered, after much study, prayer. and pain, that the Anglo-Catholic, or Tractarian, concept of the Anglican Church as a via media between Catholicism and Protestantism, was ultimately a house built on sand, without…
Lucky Sevens: Caravaggio’s ‘Works of Mercy’
First, let’s review the Corporal Works of Mercy, which are seven in number: 1. To feed the hungry2. To give water to the thirsty3. To clothe the naked4. To shelter the homeless5. To visit the sick6. To visit the imprisoned7. To bury the dead…