Even though I occasionally download a novel to my iPad, this is why I will never give up on real, cardboard-paste-and-paper books: I got this in the mail yesterday, and it was so tantalizingly beautiful, so sweet to the hand – and then I opened it and the newness of the page and ink nearly made me dizzy with delight, and — yes, I did it — I took a great big sniff of my new, beautiful book. A bouquet... Read more
Part of my Lent has been re-reading the Holy Rule of St. Benedict, pertinent to the day. It’s been speaking to me in very personal and private ways. Today as I contemplate a great decision that involved travel and has me doubting and unsure, the lesson is about stability, which is actually one of the Benedictine vows: If a pilgrim monk coming from a distant region wants to live as a guest of the monastery, let him be received for... Read more
As Holy Week approaches we can always count on provocative headlines, like Time Magazine’s Is Hell Dead? which looks at the latest book by Evangelical preacher Rob Bell. In October, it wouldn’t warrant a cover, I’m sure. This entire Lent, however, the Catholic church in America has been roiling with Cult of Personality issues. The scandals of recent years have shaken the faithful; Rome seems distant to many and in our media-obsessed society a passionate orator proclaiming “the truth” as-you-want-to-hear-it... Read more
ORIGINALLY JULY 20, 2006 RECAPTURED BY WAYBACK MACHINE Nightmarish effect of ESC/Fetal research on patients UPDATED Filed under: Culture of Life/Death, Bush Good, Medical, America UPDATE:::SCROLL DOWN FOR POST::: UPDATE: Reader Brian sends a link identifying precisely what embryonic stem cells are and how they are derived which is highly informational. In his email he related that the ESC’s are being harvested from embryos concieved in petri dishes, not the womb. To my way of thinking, it doesn’t matter whether... Read more
Awesome, terrifying and fascinating – when the earth opens up at the 11:31 mark it’s chilling H/T Patrick Madrid Read more
It’s been a difficult Lent, for me, at least. Lots of things to ponder, and so little free time to really do it. One thing I’ve learned this Lent is that I am lending more time to work than to the things that matter. Not that work doesn’t matter. It certainly does, and I love my job, and I am grateful, every single day to be able to make a living as a writer. But too much work has taken... Read more
I love this story from Sr. Mary George, FSMG: I am a firm believer that children say some of the most heartfelt prayers that I know. So, I asked my 1st grade class on Thursday to do me an extra special favor. I explained to them that 23 sisters would be renewing their vows on Sunday and I would be one of them. Could they pray for us at Mass? They gave me many heartfelt assurances that they would do... Read more
My husband thinks this will be me, one day: The hermitage isn’t what you’d expect: a small home in a quiet neighborhood of Essex, Maryland, that was originally built as a one-room fishing shack 100 years ago. But then, the hermit who lives there isn’t what you’d expect, either. Mary Zimmerer, now Sr. Maria Veronica of the Holy Face, is a bubbly widow who discerned a call to the contemplative life after her husband passed away five years ago. Having... Read more
I’m a little behind and late getting this linked, but my column is up at First Things, where I am reflecting on todays readings and how viper-bitten the whole church seems to be, this Lent: The Church seems always to be challenged during the Lenten season, but this time the attacks are not foreign, as it were, but domestic: Interior factions are attempting to pull the Church toward their own interests, and as Holy Week approaches the Body of Christ... Read more
I don’t know about anyone else, but I have very much enjoyed the quiet. Read more
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