In the grounds of the Zion Hill Baptist Church just over the North Carolina border from Greenville, off highway 25 at Flat Rock you will find this very nice statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Note the two plaster, painted lambs to the left. Very Catholic… Read more

On Fridays we have a school Mass, and I usually preach without notes. The ideas are in my head, and I take a ‘prayer walk’ around the school campus and practice the homily out loud. There’s a flock of canadian geese in residence at the moment and the other day they started to follow me around. I don’t know if they were listening to the sermon or not, but they certainly left plenty of ‘offerings’ in their wake. St Francis... Read more

A friend has written for advice about how to debate with an atheist mathematician who thinks Dawkins and Co. are quite clever fellows. He is fond of finding inconsistencies and contradictions in Scripture to ‘disprove’ Biblical inspiration. His favorite at the moment is pointing out the contradictions between the geneologies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. One hardly knows where to start with such puerile arguments. The geneologies in Matthew and Luke are recorded for particular theological purposes. Matthew wants... Read more

My family were attending a High School football game, and were sitting high up in the bleachers. My little sister–a skinny little thing–was seven years old. When the home team scored a touchdown everyone stood up and cheered. She did too, and as she did, she slipped through the narrow gap between the seat of the bleacher and the footrest. My mother saw her go, and watched helplessly as her daugher fell nearly 100 feet to the ground below. Furthermore,... Read more

Therese once said, “I believe I am humble.”I was speaking at a conference on the saint when someone asked the obvious question, “How could she have said, ‘I believe I am humble?’ Surely if you think you’re humble, you’re proud, and therefore you’re not humble, and you’re certainly not a saint.”The answer comes in discovering where and when Therese said this. She said it on her deathbed the day she died. She had suffered in cheerful fortitude for months with... Read more

I was sitting in a room in Oxford at a conference when I heard John Saward mention the Little Way of St Therese. I had just been finishing my book on the Rule of St Benedict and remembered that he referred to his rule as a ‘little rule for beginners. ‘Little Rule’ and ‘Little Way’ connected and I wondered if there might be a book to be written comparing the lives and teachings of two wonderful saints. Learn more about... Read more

Daily Telegraph journalist Sam Leith has a good piece on the present revolt in Burma where Buddhist monks are turning out in their thousands–supported by crowds of ordinary people to protest against the military dictatorship in their country. It is reminiscent of the scenes in the Philippines, Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe in the 80s when we saw faith inspired bloodless revolutions overthrow military dictatorships. Sam Leith’s main point (and he writes as an unbeliever) is that religion... Read more

One of the joys of being Catholic is getting to know the saints. I love not only reading about their lives, and getting the head knowledge, but also trying to get to know them, and understand what made them tick. If there are images of them (and there are for most of the saints of the last five hundred years or so) I like to contemplate their faces, and see there the image of Christ recapitulated and expressed again. Look... Read more

The Dominicans in England are enjoying a bit of a renaissance. Here are three brand new brothers just after their clothing in Cambridge. Click here to see more photos of the ceremony, (and to link to a great blog while you’re at it) Read more

This painting is a good illustration of the relationship between Scripture and the Church. Saint Luke is writing the gospel, but he can only do so as he contemplates Our Lady and Our Lord. In other words, the inspired written Word of God is the product of a deep contemplative relationship with the incarnate Word of God. See how the picture is composed? The two pillars may be the two testaments: Mary and her Son the final fulfillment of the... Read more