If you’re anything like me, right about now you’re starting to feel overwhelmed. Nothing goes according to plan. The year is about to end. And Christmas? No one is getting anything like what you had hoped to be giving them … But instead of contributing to the chaos: Remember the Incarnation. God became man to save our eternal souls! To walk with us and show us how to live. That’s so much more important and enduring that those beautiful bows... Read more
We have a collection of insights on what happened in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday up on National Review Online today. So many of the conversations we’re hearing are just not helping, at a time when silence and prayer might be the only wise response from most of us. I was especially struck by what Michael Pakaluk had to say: When The Times invited essays on the topic, “What’s wrong with the world?” G. K. Chesterton in a letter offered his... Read more
From a Roger Kimball review of Robert H. Bork’s Coercing Virtue that appeared in National Review: Like many profound books, Coercing Virtue does not attempt to say anything new. Instead, it does something that is at once more valuable and more difficult: It reminds us of old, familiar truths–so familiar that they are everywhere neglected. “Democracy” means the rule of the people and its duly elected representatives, not the rule of unelected judges. Professional do-gooders, intoxicated by the emotion of... Read more
Robert Bork died this morning. He should have been on the Supreme Court. But perhaps the fact that he wasn’t confirmed was as important a lesson to us as the time Ronald Reagan intended to have him spend on the Court might have been. I remember emceeing a “Women for Roberts” event back one hot August D.C. day. Bob would be on the Supreme Court if his hearings were held today, Mary Ellen Bork (one of said women and wife... Read more
Some advice: As Catholics we should give differently than those who do not share our faith. In our giving, we should try to give in such a way that those we love receive something of the pearl of great price, the buried treasure that rust can’t corrode, burglars can’t steal and the IRS can’t tax. We should give in a way that they receive something of the real Gift of Christmas. This does not mean we should never give material... Read more
This morning in Rome, Pope Benedict prays with us all for the families who lost children on Friday in that horrifying school shooting in Connecticut: I was deeply saddened by Friday’s senseless violence in Newtown, Connecticut. I assure the families of the victims, especially those who lost a child, of my closeness in prayer. May the God of consolation touch their hearts and ease their pain. During this Advent Season, let us dedicate ourselves more fervently to prayer and to... Read more
I just joined Pope Benedict XVI and very cold pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square for the Angelus. It is cold here. But are our hearts? This Advent, “give space and welcome Jesus, the Word that saves us, to our hearts,” the Holy Father implored. I’ve never been here at this time of year. There’s significance in the physical reality here right now: A tree is up by a nativity being built, outside, in the square. Inside, poor Pope Pius X’s... Read more
In response to some of the shock-awe-coverage of Cardinal Dolan being a fan of Dorothy Day, John Hirsch, an English professor at Georgetown, writes: “it is a religious, not only political, vision that moved her, and it is that which effectively set her apart from a purely political agenda, and engages us still today.” Thank you, Professor Hirsch. (My previous rant on the topic here.) Somethings are bigger than politics. Even politics. Read more
From a recent diocesan paper column: Just as much as Jesus discoursed on the beauty of Heaven, he spoke about the reality of hell. He compared hell to a blazing furnace, an unquenchable fire, a worm that doesn’t die. We can make choices, He said, that cause us to lose body and soul in hell, that exclude us from the banquet of the Kingdom, that lead God to say to us, “I never knew you.” Those who end up in... Read more
According to Twitter: I get all kinds of mixed results from random homily tweets myself. I should probably put my iPad away. But sometimes you get feedback that suggests there was a reason you pulled it out … Read more
Kathryn Lopez
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