Every so often, some areas of my academic research agenda become of interest to Americans. Over the weekend, the media tale of the United States’s President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen was one such moment. Even a close friend of mine who had previously discouraged me from what he called ‘chasing ambulances’ in my scholarship told me that I had better blog about it. In light of this, I think I had also start to make good on... Read more
This is the fourth in a series of posts entitled Retracing My Footsteps in the City of Saints by Eugenia Geisel for Eastern Catholic Person on her experience of encountering the saints in Kraków as part of the ordinary supernatural during World Youth Day. There are three previous posts, one on the Black Madonna, a second on Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko, and a third on Holy Faustyna and the Divine Mercy Devotion. Eugenia is an undergraduate at the University of Washington in Seattle, majoring in Korean and... Read more
As the election results came trickling in on Tuesday night indicating that Donald Trump would become President-Elect of the United States of America, I messaged my spiritual father: ‘I should probably say something, shouldn’t I?’ My spiritual father is a Byzantine Jesuit. After discerning that this was actually a question, he proceeded to help me discern. He told me that I don’t exactly have an obligation to say anything. I told him I was perplexed. After all, I’m supposed to... Read more
I have not written for a while, and I suspect that some might be glad about that. Some of my astute readers have never ceased to point out the gaps in my knowledge of the Eastern churches, some have even exhorted me to stop writing for fear of harming the Church with my ignorance, and one has even unfriended me on Facebook after discovering me calling myself an ‘evangelical’ and anxiously pointed out that the fount of all knowledge – Wikipedia – says... Read more
I’m blogging through my office decor this week, even though Byzantine icons are so much more than decorative for me. I’m going to start by looking at the fifteenth-century iconographer Andrei Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity. There’s so much out there on this icon from the objective standpoint of what it’s supposed to be about that I feel like only a brief introduction is necessary before I get all subjective. The scene in this icon is technically the ‘Hospitality of... Read more
I haven’t blogged for a little bit because I’ve been getting ready for the beginning of the quarter here at Northwestern University. As I’ve said before – and I’ll never cease to reiterate – my academic competencies are in geography, Asian American studies, and religious studies and only have to do in a very tangential way to my life as an Eastern Catholic person. Unfortunately for my readers, this blog is about the stuff about which I am the least... Read more
By now, I’m sure everyone has read the story of my friend Chase Padusniak, who was deceived by the online Twitter persona of a young Catholic woman with whom he thought a spark of romance could burst into the flame of love. The complete disappointment of this relationship is heart-breaking to even read. I cannot imagine what it must be like for Chase. I remember that we met online shortly after I posted once on my Facebook on Simone Weil.... Read more
After I posted once on the Theotokos of Częstochowa, I recently got called out on one of my social media platforms for calling the Most Holy Theotokos my ‘Mom.’ It was a friendly call-out, to be sure, from one of my Orthodox friends who was perhaps simultaneously amused and concerned that I was not being reverent enough; indeed, the astute readers who occasionally voice their uneasiness with my blog often protest the irreverent informality that sometimes marks my writing tone.... Read more
Two days ago, the Latin Church canonized Mother Teresa of Calcutta. As usual, I am late to the party, having gone to attend some of my more secular academic things. I am thankful for my delay in posting on St Teresa. In the week leading up to the canonization and now what we can call a subsequent fallout, the sainthood of St Teresa of Calcutta is becoming increasingly something of a scandal. Most of the criticism against St Teresa and her... Read more
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