17° Sunday After Pentecost
..."to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children."—Luke 1:17
On the Importance of Study
A talk I gave to a men's group in Louisiana last night.
Catholics and iPhones
Leisure: The Basis of Culture is a book written by Josef Pieper, a 20th century expert on St. Thomas Aquinas. In this book, Pieper demonstrates that a Christian civilization can not be sustained by technology and production as seen in Protestantized countries like Germany. On the southern and more Catholic side of Europe, we see how Italy and Spain close down business for afternoon siestas. Although Italy and Spain are less and less Catholic every year, they retain some aspects of what was once a Christian culture, namely, leisure. For Pieper, leisure is not laziness but an ability to enjoy the good things of life via contemplation and community. This includes God and family. His book has wide appeal to liberals and conservatives. In our slavish age of ironic isolation amidst so much technology, everyone knows that being able to relax with friends or family and a [...]
16° Sunday After Pentecost
Is the Christian called to Inspiration or Relevance? We look to St. Theresa of Kolkata to understand today's Gospel, Luke chapter 14.
15° Sunday After Pentecost
Who caused the crisis in the Church? I did. "I hereby commit to staying engaged with the suffering of the world, as long as I am alive and as much as I am able. I commit to this because on the cross no tear is cried in vain, no ache in the heart is unfruitful. If I will gaze, wide-eyed, at the suffering of the world AND lean in, I will begin to learn what it is to be human, and I will see Jesus. And there is no other way of being a Christian for me anymore. None whatsoever. If I don't suffer with/for the world I might as well quit. If I believe the Gospel—if Jesus really did come to heal me and the whole human race—then I commit to being a vessel of that healing. His mercy [...]
A World That Runs on Sacrifice
We Christians tend to see the crucifixion as a horrible event, and the resurrection as that which rectified everything. This is actually true. It is totally true, in fact. But there’s a mysterious line in Revelation that seems to say that something of the crucifixion precedes even creation itself. Revelation 13:8 speaks of Jesus Christ as "the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world." There are many translations but I think this is the best translation considering the Greek ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, translated by St. Jerome as agni qui occisus est ab origine mundi. What does it mean that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world? Didn’t He die out of love for us sinful humans? Yes, but the pattern of self-emptying is the very life of the Blessed [...]
14° Sunday After Pentecost
Why do Christians keep the 10 Commandments but not the kosher laws of Leviticus? What do the Irish have to do with the Galatians of Turkey? This and more on today's podcast.
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Sorry for the repost, but I'm about to start traveling.
Women’s Swimsuits
Just in time for the Olympics, I have some good things to say about the clothing of female athletes below, but you'll have to wait for that. Many of you know the historical roots of the bikini: French engineer Louis Réard worked in his mother's lingerie shop in the 1940s. There, he designed and got the word "bikini" from the name of the first post-bellum atomic-bomb site, Bikini Atoll, for obvious reasons. He tried to find a French model to first debut his invention in 1946, but he could not find one. He ultimately had to hire a stripper. It took a while for the bikini to catch on in the United States. As late as 1957, Modern Girl magazine said "No girl with tact or decency would ever wear such a thing." Many young Catholics today are discovering this, and so they hesitatingly tell their [...]
12° Sunday After Pentecost
The Good Samaritan through the eyes of some old Church Fathers and a new saint's aphorism: "You did it to Me."