I realize I don’t blog much these days — perhaps it’s true that blogs are dead — but it feels like I should at least make some effort, here, before the thing withers and fades like the grass that is all flesh… So… couple things… 1) My husband has advised me that the book situation is again out of control and it might be time for me to get rid of a hundred or so Read more…
I only just realized today that we have just passed the second anniversary of the shooting massacre in Las Vegas, a strange story — they’re all strange, but this one particularly so, because not only have all the questions gone unanswered, they are no longer even being asked as this particular event seems to have been tossed down a collective memory hole. It’s so easy to forget about the loss of nearly 60 lives when Read more…
Well, Happy Birthday to James Paul McCartney, who was born this day in 1942 and grew up to be one half of what became arguably the greatest songwriting partnership in popular music. What a gift he had, to seemingly exhale melodies. What a remarkable, innovative bass player, to boot. What unforgettable harmonies (so tightly wound, so perfectly matched) he and John Lennon (and George Harrison) brought to us out of their scrappy Liverpudlian backgrounds, all Read more…
Is there more “mad eros”* than that which led the Son of God to make himself one with us even to the point of suffering as his own the consequences of our offences?Dear brothers and sisters, let us look at Christ pierced in the cross! … On the cross, it is God himself who begs the love of his creature: he is thirsty for the love of every one of us.—Pope Benedict XVI, Lent 2007, Read more…
I write this just days after watching Paris’ Cathedral of Notre Dame become engulfed by flames and fearing that the most famous and treasured place of worship in all of Christendom after St. Peter’s Basilica would be reduced to stone and ash at the start of Holy Week. Thankfully, the Cathedral is not wholly lost, but as it burned, it truly did seem like familiar parables and lessons were playing out before our eyes: “In Read more…
I think this news is actually bigger and more exciting than I seem to be saying where I am quoted in this piece. It’s about time the Jesuits had female members. All the other great religious orders have them. Even the Oratorians have created a role for women — the Flammae Cordis (recalling Philip Neri’s heart of fire) — and has given them cool red habits, too, with the distictive collar of the Oratory. That’s Read more…
A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for Aleteia encouraging people to Jumpstart Your Prayerlife and cited several small ways to bring prayerful practices into one’s life: The kiss of God is attainable, and wholly by grace; our own effort need consist in very little more than the wanting to do the right thing, or admitting to the simple desire to pray. “I believe that the desire to please you does in fact Read more…
The story of rich parents buying their children’s way into the “best” schools is an opportunity to discuss how we value degrees over actual excellence. The headlines are blaring about a maddening college admissions scandal, one that names celebrities like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and also touches on so many issues — class resentment, the trumping of credentials over real ability, educational unfairness. The story even helps some way toward explaining the rise and Read more…
It all started very innocently. Vulture published a list ranking all of the songs recorded and released by the Beatles in ascending order, and while I’d never been a Beatle maniac, I was enough of a fan to be interested; it was fun to look back, particularly on the earlier Beatles music which I had all but forgotten. The list surprised me for all I was unfamiliar with, so I began to look songs up Read more…
Pondering the upcoming feast of the Epiphany, I found myself wondering about the message of the Magi, and imagining those last moments before King Herod signed a death warrant for countless Jewish infants stripped from their mother’s arms and put to the sword. It turned into one of those little fictions I write sometimes — once for First Things, then, at Easter, for Patheos. This time, it’s for Word on Fire. As Fr. Steve Grunow Read more…