In which I address some theological concerns, including the problem of the unforgivable sin. In my first post about Silence I mentioned that I have been very frustrated as I’ve read reviews of the novel and the movie because so many reviewers fail...
In which I address some critical concerns, including the problem of the unreliable narrator I first read Shusaku Endo’s novel Silence back in 2009 and I didn’t really know what to make of it. The novel was more than I could take in at...
In his book about his experience in the Russian labor camps, He Leadeth Me, American Jesuit Father Walter Ciszek writes about how work is ennobling. Although I read this book five years ago, I don’t remember it well, probably because I was...
Monday September 4 Of course today I had planned to take a day off of school because of the Labor Day holiday but at 6:30 Anthony brought his math to Dom in the office and wanted help working on his multiplication tables. Ben wanted to read to me...
When the great moment arrived and the voice of God became audible at Sinai, what mysteries did it disclose? I apocalyptic visions one is shown “the treasuries of the stars,” mountains of gold, seas of glass, cities of jasper. Did Israel learn...
Somehow my online reading this week seemed to be forming a thematic cluster: mysteries of the ancient world. So I’ve curated for you a collection of articles that all wanted to talk to each other, trying to fit together like pieces of a jigsaw...
L’Esprit-Saint et Marie One of the priests from our parish is from Haiti. I love his homilies on the Sundays that he says Mass, about once a month. I also love his weekly French-language column in the bulletin. I like to read it to practice...
Flowers by the Sea When over the flowery, sharp pasture’s edge, unseen, the salt ocean lifts its form—chicory and daisies tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone but color and the movement—or the shape perhaps—of restlessness, whereas the sea is...
Finished in August 1. The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester Since I enjoyed Winchester’s The Map that Changed the World, I decided to finally give this book a try. I first heard about it years ago and it’s taken a long time for me to...
On Sunday I caught a glimpse of something big and green in amongst the cosmos. It was a mantis and it had a bumbleebee held in its grasp and it was busy eating it. I called the kids and they all came running to watch. Monday August 28...
