Columns
The Holy Innocents – The Catholic Thing
The Church, “expert in humanity” (as Pope Paul VI put it), knows that the mystery of Christmas (like that of Easter) is so great that it cannot be adequately plumbed – let alone celebrated – in a single day. And so, taking a page out of our…
Imitating the Holy Family – The Catholic Thing
The collect for today’s feast prays, “O God, who were pleased to give us the example of the Holy Family, graciously grant that we may imitate them.” Now, that’s a tall order. After all, the Holy Family was exceptional. Inimitable, one might say.…
Benedict’s Maestro Makes Music for Leo
High culture – and the spiritual appreciation of high culture – returned to the Vatican this month. Pope Leo XIV is quietly restoring some recent traditions, such as personally celebrating Holy Mass on Christmas morning, not done since 1994.…
Christmas Joy – The Catholic Thing
The history of salvation is long. It begins, as we read in Genesis, even before Creation itself. Before space and time were, God already was preparing all that would unfold. The ultimate culmination of that story is as yet unknown, though it has…
A King is Born: Christ the Lord
Luke’s Gospel provides a rather detailed rendering of Jesus’ birth. Because Mary “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart,” she must have given her eyewitness account to Luke. Thus, the historicity of what is declared should not be…
That He Will Come Again
The road to Catholicism is not necessarily straight or smooth, and it may have been wiped out, for instance, by a mountain avalanche just when it was coming into view. In my case, even where there were no memorable avalanches, it took me half a…
St. Jerome and the Lion
Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”– Revelation 5:5 There’s a story (likely a legend echoing the earlier…
Of Light and Darkness – The Catholic Thing
Yesterday was the winter solstice, the point at which, because of variations in the way that the Earth orbits the Sun, night is longest, the “darkest day of the year.” (It’s also my birthday, and for some who have followed me over the years, I…
A Thousandfold Intuited – The Catholic Thing
A few months ago, I was lucky enough to be in the capital city of Slovakia, Bratislava, formerly Pressburg, staying in the beautiful Old Town, to speak at a conference. To say it is charming makes it sound like a wedding-cake creation; it charms…
Flannery O’Connor and the Mass of the World
When I first began devouring Catholic fiction in college, I couldn’t figure out why J. F. Powers immediately struck a chord with me and Flannery O’Connor (this year is the centenary of her birth) did not. It wasn’t that one was better than the…