If you ever doubted that there is a battle going on all around us — a true battle — between good and evil, and that that battle engages every single one of us whether we are aware of it or not, the events of the past week really ought to clarify that point for everyone. In the face of the unspeakable evil of the slaughter of children, good broke through, and the stories are legion — good people of all... Read more
O Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of Israel, who open and no one shuts, who shuts, and no one opens, come and free from prison him who sits in darkness and the shadow of death. O gates, lift high your heads; grow higher, ancient doors. Let him enter, the king of glory! Psalm 24Â Read more
This landed in my mailbox yesterday: James Hitchcock’s History of the Catholic Church Looks delicious, and I can’t wait to read it, but before I could even peer at it, my son — who likes reading all sorts of history — grabbed it. He’s been outside on the porch, reading and smoking, and reading, and he says he’s loving it. So…a Buster recommend! If he didn’t like it he’d say so, succinctly and in no uncertain terms. I was really... Read more
“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison My goodness, you guys, I’m not easily moved to tears but the response to this request for toy donations on behalf of an outreach that had none to... Read more
Chanting these beautiful antiphons has really served to keep me centered, this week: O Root of Jesse, who stand as an ensign to the peoples, at whom kings stand silent and whom the gentiles seek, come and free us, delay no longer! And perhaps, in light of all we are grieving just now, it is good to sing this verse of O Come, O Come Emmanuel: O Come of Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s tyranny; From depths... Read more
Folks, I know things are tight all over and it’s late in the season, and you probably have already made your charitable gifts for Christmas, but I wonder if I can tug at your sleeve for a little help. There is an agency in Paterson, New Jersey, connected to Catholic Charities, and doing outreach and counseling for troubled families — in some cases Dad is jail or recently out — who are struggling to make it and succeed as families.... Read more
That’s the question I’m asking in my column at First Things, this week. More correctly, I suppose I am wondering, does the Pope (and the church) need to do better with the “hard” questions of faith that are now subject to New Media? Or do we — and especially the non-believers who are pining for “big” questions — simply not understanding the depth of the answers? It all started with a tweetback from… a self-described “Agnostic Atheist, Freethinker, Skeptic .... Read more
Tonight, it begins; at Vespers, before the Magnificat, we take up the gorgeous “O”Antiphons. We chant them in full solemnity, with their wandering air, their voice of deep longing. We have been wandering, and longing, for a long, long time; we seek an end to the journey, and the wanting. As the whole nation is gripped in mourning and wondering what first to correct in ourselves, in our laws and our society, have we ever needed these powerful antiphons more... Read more
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is expressing embarrassment at just how much the press got wrong, yesterday, as they rushed to tell us anything they could about the terrible slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Perhaps he also feels mortified by the press tweets to families and friends of the victims looking for a story. I mean, I’m not a member of the fourth estate, and I’m mortified by it. But as we wonder what happened, why it happened... Read more
If you wish to pray the Office of the Dead with me this morning — from the Office of Readings — the podcast is here Read more
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