Every saint of the Church personifies the holiness of Christ in a manner that responds to the needs of the age. St. Paul exhibited met the needs of the apostolic Church as it gradually left its Jewish moorings and became increasingly enmeshed in pagan society. The Church had to incorporate the nations while at the … Read more
When we consider the period in Western civilization known today as the Renaissance, we encounter a time of notable change in virtually every area of culture. Visual art was departing from the purely symbolic, representative forms of the Middle Ages and exhibiting a more earthly, mundane realism, and while it continued to concentrate on religious … Read more
When we study the history of the Church, we encounter what many have called the res Catholica, the “Catholic thing.” We use the non-descript Latin res quite deliberately in order to evoke within the reader a sense of enigma, of irreducible mystery. The saints of the Church are the strongest representatives of this res Catholica, … Read more
Of all the various modes in which Christian life is manifested, the life of the solitary ascetic strikes our contemporary culture as the most eccentric. In a culture that underscores self-fulfillment and the gratification of virtually every appetite, it is incomprehensible to most people why anyone would choose a life involving isolation from social life … Read more
Much like our own woeful Republic, the Roman Empire in late antiquity suffered from moral exhaustion and was beginning to show signs of its eventual collapse. Amidst that decay, St. Martin of Tours (c.336-397) embodied the Christian valor necessary to sustain and rebuild authentic Christian culture. For centuries, the most important Roman moral quality was … Read more
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) personifies the enigmatic nature of Catholicism. In barely a lifespan he combined the roles of theologian, contemplative, reformer, apologist, inquisitor, and popular preacher. Each of these functions forms a part of what might called the res catholica, the Catholic “thing” or reality. At the heart of this reality is the … Read more