It felt like a punch in the gut: Notre Dame is burning. I didn’t believe it till I’d gone to Twitter, seen the videos. Horrible. I couldn’t stop looking. Why is a fire like that? Why does it hold us so? A terrible beauty? It had something grand about it, momentous. It really was beautiful […]
“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. […]
I don’t watch award shows, but Chris Pratt’s MTV awards acceptance speech was being shared widely on social media yesterday. And I really cannot rave about it enough. To say that it might be my favorite acceptance speech ever doesn’t really do it justice because who rates acceptance speeches. Instead, I’ll say it’s been one […]
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 pregnant at the time and very sleepy and mentally sluggish. This time I’m […]
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and […]
You are the temple of God When I was in high school I memorized The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes. I’ve forgotten most of it now, but the first part of final stanza has stayed with me, the part of the poem that I loved best Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, […]
Responding to Elizabeth Scalia’s challenge: Why do YOU Remain a Catholic? Finding Jesus in the Eucharist. By itself the Eucharist would be sufficient reason to stay. The fullness of our Savior, of his Body, his Blood, his Soul and his Divinity is present in every particle in every drop of the Eucharist. And he invites […]
The deacon’s homily for the feast of Pentecost had so much potential energy that was never released. He began by describing forest fires in the Western United States, and talked about how the roar and the wind and the flames were similar to the Gospel’s description of the action of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. […]
Sunday morning on our way to Mass Dom commented on the sign at the corner pharmacy advertising Valentines Day merchandise, wondering if people really buy Valentines stuff this far in advance of the holiday. That got us talking about all these secularized holidays and how cut off they are from their roots in authentic Christian […]
The End of the Fiery Sword: Adam & Eve and Jesus & Mary by Maura Roan McKeegan, illustrated by Theodore Schluenderfritz. Do you know about Adam and Eve? About Jesus and Mary, too? Two are from the Old Testament, Two are from the New. Their stories are the Word of God, Their messages are true; […]