“To coerce a man is to deprive him of freedom—freedom from what? Almost every moralist in human history has praised freedom. Like happiness and goodness, like nature and reality, the meaning of this term is so porous that there is little interpretation that it seems able to resist.” – Isaiah Berlin Being American, I can’t help but hear the words “freedom” and “liberty” a lot. Every sporting event, never mind every communal gathering, finds its beginning in our national anthem:... Read more
It may seem rather odd for a Catholic to juxtapose these two terms, to place the Faith alongside a word that’s most often taken to mean a misguided viewpoint, even a self-serving way of seeing. Many would say that the whole point of becoming Catholic is to enter into a relationship with Christ and His Church. Our goal is to avoid refracted and insufficient ways of seeing, to pursue the greatest good rather than deficient, created ones. Certainly that is... Read more
If I may begin abruptly: an ex-girlfriend once told me we couldn’t be together because she had to find herself first, and I’d heard that many times before—from friends, from acquaintances, really just belching forth in popping bubbles from the social soup in which we swim. It’s a common refrain, and, to be frank, one that gets disparaged quite a bit, especially within academic and Christian communities, in which bloggers, tweeters, and opiners of all kinds think themselves smarter than... Read more
This post is a consolidation of an essay written by Nathan Smolin, a PhD Student in Classics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, originally published in three parts (which can be found here, here, and here). In order to make this long, but incredibly insightful, work more easily navigable and readable, I’ve republished it here. I hope it may benefit you, dear reader. Among the supposed “great dates” of history, one stands out strongly to those interested... Read more
I’m currently at a conference at Notre Dame. Yesterday, I took part in a panel that, whatever its initial pretensions, ended up discussing concepts like “Great Books” and “humanism,” two nebulous, but, in their own way, important, topics. I owe much to my interlocutors, so I’d like to start by offering my thanks; the following (in)coherent ramblings are, at bottom, rooted in what they had to share. These questions seem worthy of address largely because there’s a lot of discussion... Read more
Over a month ago I decided I’d do a series of meditations: one on the “Our Father,” one on the “Hail Mary,” and one on the “Jesus Prayer.” Then my General Exams got in the way, taking me away from blogging for far too long. Finally, I’d like to complete this little chain of reflections. Why? Predominantly because I initially thought of these meditations as a way to improve my own prayer life, to more deeply involve my mind in... Read more
I called a friend today, and after chatting about his insomnia and our mutual affection for certain philosophers, he hit me with something surprising: “well yeah; that’s because we’re both vain people.” It hit me hard, in the way I think fraternal correction ought. There was no accusation; rather, there was a sort of mutual condemnation—even if unintended—a verbal enactment of that reality we all ought to meditate upon: that I (each of us to ourselves) is the first among... Read more
As I noted the other day, I’ve been trying to be more attentive in my prayer, not merely in the sense of more aware of which prayers I do say but more importantly in intentionally reflecting on the words of those prayers—the individual units that make up whatever I am asking of God. What has become clearer for me is that petitionary prayer is never just a question of requests—worse yet, demands—but instead a rich mode of contemplation. The words... Read more
How glorious a prayer it is; a safe haven against all manner of anxieties and pains. Read more
Does our definition of religious art matter? Read more
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