The Institute of Catholic Culture has asked me to teach a course for their Magdala Apostolate, which provides formation for nuns. I’ll take the sisters straight through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, commenting on it section by section and fielding their questions. The idea for an updated universal catechism came from Bernard Cardinal Law in a gathering of bishops in 1985. He argued: Iuvenes Bostoniensis, Leningradiensis et Sancti Jacobi in Chile induti sunt ‘Blue Jeans’ et audiunt et saltant eandem musicam. That is to say, young people of Boston, Leningrad, and Santiago in Chile all ..read more

Perhaps the neatest thing in Lander this week was that J.D. Flynn gave a lecture for Wyoming Catholic College. That’s J.D. Flynn, co-founder of The Pillar and former editor-in-chief of the Catholic News Agency, the man whose website seems to have changed Vatican policy—that J.D. Flynn, right here in Nowhere, Wyoming. I actually met and shook hands with J.D. in a coffee shop this morning. It came about this way. My favorite coffee joint is run by an old friend, Andrew Whaley, and one day Andrew joked that he would like to make every Wednesday “Bollywood Day,” meaning that staff are required to ..read more

When Israel was longing for the messiah, the prophet Malachi warned them that he is like a refining fire. When our Lord Jesus Christ came at last, he said, “I have come to cast fire on the earth, and would it were already kindled!” But when he finally cast his fire, it found an answering fire: the love between husband and wife had anticipated, indeed had prophesied, his coming. So he took the husband and wife as his coat of arms, if I can put it that way, and he cast his fire into their midst. They blazed out with a supernatural flame in this dark world: their children took refuge in its warmt ..read more

I was recently out at the New England campus of Thomas Aquinas College, where I gave a lecture on the patriarch Abraham. It was a blessing to see the little pioneer community in their cavernous campus, planting a 50-year-old tradition on new soil. The lecture is available here: https://www.thomasaquinas.edu/news/shaping-vessel-mercy-life-abraham Here’s a funny coincidence: my father was out there a couple of years ago, and he lectured on Abraham Lincoln! The post A lecture on Abraham appeared first on New Song ..read more

Over the past two years, a lot of people have asked about whether anyone is bound to obey this or that decree by this or that authority. Sometimes it’s about the secular government, and sometimes it’s about an ecclesial figure, but the common thread has been confusion about when obedience is good or bad. In practice, I see people flee to extremes: one group acts as though the government has absolutely no authority to deal with COVID while the other group acts as though there could never be such a thing as government overreach. One group acts as though a bishop or the Pope has no authority that ..read more

Over a year ago I sat down with Matt Whitman at the Lander Bar and we filmed a conversation. He’s a protestant, recently a pastor, and I’m a Catholic theologian, and I just let him grill me about Catholicism. I have intense conversations pretty much every day, so I had that one and then went on with the week. Didn’t give it much more thought. But I keep seeing nice comments from people who say how helpful the series has been to them. I am honestly surprised! I didn’t prepare or pre-think the interview, I didn’t see the questions ahead of time, and I got tired as the afternoon went on, so it mu ..read more

It has been a while now since my book came out: Cur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Words. It culminates twenty years of thinking about what exactly Scripture is, getting past the various partial viewpoints and straining for that view from the mountaintop where you can see the whole landscape. That vision was a burden: I felt that I was with child, so to speak, and the only way forward to peace was to bring it forth to the world. The day it was accepted for publication by Ignatius Press I felt a weight drop from my shoulders. Good. I don’t know whether I will ever write another book. In fact ..read more

Maritain expresses some suspicion about the term “fine arts”. It is hard to say what the fine arts are all about except to say that they make beautiful things, and yet Maritain maintains that beauty is not the end of the fine arts. It is the “end beyond the end,” he says—and in the same passage, he admits that he struggles to find words for what he has in mind. This past year, I thought a lot about what he meant and how he should have said it, because I was asked to teach a course that covers the history of art from ancient Greece to the Gothic cathedral. The course presented a puzzle in its c ..read more

A question from a man up late one night wondering: It seems that if one can know something he can also from that, arrive at its opposite – what it is not. If we can not know Heaven, can we know Hell? Divine Revelation gives a nice lot of imagery: Fire, darkness, etc. and if the greatest joy of Heaven is of the soul in the Beatific Vision, the primary suffering in Hell would be the deprivation of It. But we don’t know what ‘It’ is. Why I am wondering what Hell is like, I do not know. It is known that if I knew the smallest bit, I would wish that I didn’t, and also I am left confused about ..read more

The Gospel of John: A Processional Hymn [Tune: BESANÇON. The leader sings the italicized lines, and everyone sings the non-italicized lines.  The leader joins everyone in the last line of each verse.] In the beginning was the Word, God’s own Word, as yet unheard. And the Word was with God the Father, Radiance of eternal splendor. And the Word was our God on high, God from God and light from light. Through the Word all was made that is; All creation’s splendor his. Nothing without the Word existed, Only in him the world persisted. He was before all things with God, Everlasting, changing ..read more