Reading Father Barron In Montréal

“Croix du mont Royal” – L’aventure de l’électrictié 1880-1963, Archives de la Ville de Montréal, VM6,D1903.7-4 – Public Domain

I took a long weekend trip to Montréal this week, my first visit to the city and (shockingly?) to Canada, which turned out to be even more delightful than I could have anticipated. In the mid 1600’s, right around the time that the city was formally founded and incorporated by French settlers, my ancestors traveled there from Le Havre and stayed for a single generation before moving South and West. The connection, however tenuous, predisposed me to some affection for the place before I even arrived.

As wonderful as the trip was, the reading material that I brought along was equally as delightful. I mentioned Father Robert Barron in a somewhat critical light in a pervious post about Just War theory (for the record, I was questioning his understanding of changes in modern war, not in Just War theory) and being a neophyte still beginning his wade through the Tiber, I understood that he is a big deal. So I wanted to read him. I chose his book Catholicism: A Journey To The Heart Of The Faith not in spite of but because it seemed so simple. After immersing myself in historical representations of acedia and Thomist thought for the past few months I thought I could stand to come down from the rafters a bit and beef up on the basics. Boy am I glad that I did. Fr. Barron’s book isn’t just simple, it’s exquisitely simple. Simplicity as an art. His descriptions of the mystical union between Church and Christ were especially moving to me.

I won’t go on about it too much, I’m sure if you’re reading this then you’re already familiar with Fr. Barron and his work, but with so much rancor in the Catholic blogosphere it was nice to be reminded of the commonalities we share – the basic foundation that makes disagreement possible in the first place and allows our arguments amongst each other to take on any coherence at all.