Late for Holy Saturday. But if I wait another year to post this, I’ll forget.

March 31, 2013 By

It is a good thing to remember that in the cosmic drama, we live out our days on Saturday, the in-between day with no name. I know a woman whose grandmother lies buried under 150-year-old live oak trees in the cemetery of an Episcopal church in rural Louisiana. In accordance with the grandmother’s instructions, only [...]

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Auden shouted from the back of the lecture hall, “ON GOOD FRIDAY THE SPEARS WERE REAL.”

March 30, 2013 By

Wesley Hill, “The Anger Room.”

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“What Is the Purpose of Lent?”

March 28, 2013 By

I’m in the NYT “Room for Debate,” w/John Corvino, Rod Dreher, Maria Scaperlanda, & Patrick & Charlotte Markey. …But if all of that leaves you cold — if you feel like you don’t “get anything” from Lent — your experience may actually be the most thoroughly Christian response possible. Because Lent isn’t a self-improvement project, [...]

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LA County juvenile detainees’ letters to Pope Francis

March 28, 2013 By

We welcome their voices and publish the letters that will be read at a service Thursday evening with the Director of Novices and 11 Jesuit novices, each one washing the feet of an inmate at the juvenile hall where kids are sentenced as adults. more (via Tim Carney)

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#lifehacks (this one is recycled from Twitter)

March 28, 2013 By

Express a religious longing as mental illness, then as identity politics.

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Asking better questions about homosexuality and Christianity

March 28, 2013 By

Christopher C. Roberts in First Things: Here is what Berry fails to imagine, but what his analysis helps us to explain: chastity for gays and lesbians is possible, but, like any type of chastity, it requires profound community support, or else, in our culture, it feels like pointless loneliness. We must organize family and parish [...]

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“Cardinal Dolan Visits Maximum-Security Prison”

March 28, 2013 By

NYT: As Roman Catholics worldwide commemorate Holy Week, Cardinal Dolan chose Wednesday morning to visit the Shawangunk Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in the Hudson Valley town of Wallkill. The trip was one day before a scheduled visit by Pope Francis to a youth detention center in Rome, which the pope chose instead of the [...]

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“Cold Nights, Fiery Hearts”: me on Kristin Lavransdatter

March 26, 2013 By

First in a series on novels about marriage.

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From “Kristin Lavransdatter”

March 22, 2013 By

“You loved God the way you loved your father: not as much as you loved your own will, but still enough that you always grieved when you had to part from him.” –Sira Eiliv to Kristin

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“Sister Outsider”: I watch “Beyond the Hills”

March 21, 2013 By

at AmCon: “Beyond the Hills,” the wrenching new movie from Romanian director Cristian Mungiu (“4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”), is easy for American audiences to misunderstand. The Washington City Paper‘s review thinks it’s about the sufferings of an unbeliever trapped “within a world of intolerance.” It’s about “a battle between salvation and love.” [...]

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