To be honest, I forgot about yesterday’s feast. I had celebrated Christmas at the splendid little Gothic Church of the Holy Innocents in Manhattan — and a rousingly festive solemn Latin Mass it was, complete with lovingly sung polyphony. That parish has a shrine to the unborn, complete with a book where bereaved or penitent … Read more
During the Christmas season of 1944, General George S. Patton was leading the Third Army into Germany. Many Americans thought World War II was virtually won in the European theater, but in December Germany launched its last major offensive of the war. Overnight, Allied soldiers found themselves facing a tough fight in hard and cold … Read more
It would be easier to follow James Thurber’s advice to leave your mind alone if it could be mutual. Besides, you’d have to put your mind to it and that makes following Thurber’s advice a contradiction in terms. Mind-boggling, as it were. Of course one could fall asleep, but then Thurber would lose a reader. … Read more
How lovely is thy dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. — Psalms 84:1-2 The deepest desire of the heart is expressed in Psalm 84. The lover of God “faints for the courts … Read more
A student gave me G. K. Chesterton’s Poems, a handsome book (New York, John Lane). In it are love, war, religious and miscellaneous poems, ballads, and “Rhymes for the Times.” Its most famous poem is probably “Lepanto.” The most intriguing is “Antichrist, or The Reunion of Christendom, an Ode.” The religious poems are often about … Read more
That’s Chesterton’s idea, not mine. But he was surely right. Chesterton knew that, so long as the atheist remembers a Christmas of long ago, when it seemed that the stars themselves were made only that they might twinkle upon a stable in Bethlehem, he may yet someday become a man worthy of the boy he … Read more
To me, there’s nothing that quite says “Christmas” like schadenfreude — that grim satisfaction one takes in watching the suffering of others, especially other people whose ideas are evil. The Church father Tertullian used to write in lengthy detail of how the Romans who tortured Christians would undergo the same tortures themselves in hell, while … Read more
As we enter the last few days before we rightly give our hearts over to the joy of Christmas, we might take a few minutes in prayer over two brief passages from the past about the meaning of Advent. Here’s the first. The great Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote that We have … Read more
Forty years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, liturgical reform remains one of the most contested topics of Catholic debate. The subject, most often discussed from either the dogmatic or historical perspective, leaves little time for the powerful role played by visual imagery in worship. Although it is universally conceded that the visual … Read more
Most people know there is a rather intimidating portrait in the Old Testament of a stormy Yahweh thundering from Sinai. It is a portrait to give one healthy pause. It reminds us that “our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29), the awful and perfect Judge who can see into the tiniest cranny of conscience … Read more
My Christmas present to readers of this electronic journal this year will be to tell you to go read the Church Fathers. I should mention that you are getting this advice already “used,” or at least secondhand. I already wrote a column saying the same thing in a different way in my (very) secular newspaper … Read more
This is the story of the rebirth of St. Jerome Catholic School as St. Jerome Catholic Classical School. St. Jerome’s parish, located in Hyattsvile, Maryland, is an unusual case to begin with: Last year, it had 50 percent more baptisms than funerals, and it has four men currently in formation for the priesthood. But the … Read more
Two weeks ago I ventured into enemy territory: the Harvard Club in Boston. In all the time I’ve lived in New England, I’ve turned down every chance to visit Harvard’s prim, Georgian campus, though I’ve window-shopped in swanky Harvard Square. Out of loyalty to its rival, my alma mater, I’ve steered clear of Harvard, displaying … Read more
Christmas is closely associated with coziness, and reasonably so. It happens at the time of year (in the northern hemisphere) when we are all snugged up like badgers while it snows, blows, and rains outside. What with all the lights, hot chocolate, cheery fires, and beautiful music of the time (not to mention the warm … Read more
Imagine yourself sitting at home watching your favorite evening program on television. Suddenly the screen goes blank. An unseen announcer says: “We interrupt this program for a special announcement. We take you to the White House in Washington.” In a moment you are watching the president. Sitting in the Oval Office, he announces an international … Read more
Patrick and Nora lie buried in the Catholic cemetery in Lake City, Minnesota in the shadow of an imposing pillar bearing the legend McInerny. Their individual stones read “Our Father” and “Our Mother.” My great-great grandparents. We stopped there a few weeks ago on our way to Minneapolis and Connie tolerated my bout of Celtic … Read more
This year, many people will be celebrating Christmas alone.Whether single, married, or divorced — or simply far away from family and friends — facing the holidays alone can be a daunting experience. And no wonder: Everywhere we look there are reminders that the season is for being together with loved ones. An inevitable onslaught of … Read more
Some clichés, like some books, seem wise when we are young. Most of the D. H. Lawrence I admired when I was twenty sounds pretty silly to me now. I remember embracing the cliché about the inferiority of institutional religion as opposed to personal “religiousness.” In those days, I bought the assumption that institutions necessarily … Read more
As a boy, I was excited to hear that the circus was coming to town. Full of anticipation, we were taken to see the elephants help the roustabouts put up the big top, and when the big day came the greatest show on earth fascinated me with its variety, talent, glamor, vulgarity, and grotesquerie. It … Read more
Last night our college celebrated the vigil of the Immaculate Conception in the exact same way as every other Catholic school in America — with mulled cider, makeshift medieval costumes, the performance of two Mystery plays depicting the Fall of Man and the Dream of St. Joseph, and chanted vespers. The usual. I’m sure that … Read more