The Narthex

Last Sunday’s Gospel for the Solemnity of Christ the King is Matthew’s Last Judgment account. I have to admit I’m partial to that text because, prior to the 1969 Calendar Reform that inserted Christ the King as the last Sunday of the liturgical year, there was a kind of eschatological…

The November issue of Commentary, a monthly magazine of conservative Jewish thought, features a great essay, “Psalms They Have, But They Know Not.” Rabbi Meir Soloveichik ponders American Biblical ignorance, especially among its “educated,” and its implications. The immediate impetus for his article was an incident last summer on the…

“Keep on doing what you have learned and received” (Phil 4:9). St. Paul's sage advice, in last Sunday’s Second Reading, seems particularly apt for those gathered in Rome for the Synod on Synodality. In recent weeks, we’ve heard some interesting, some bizarre interpretations of how the Church’s Tradition relates to…

Last Sunday’s readings focused on the corrosive effect of unjust anger and its ability to choke off -- as in the case of the wicked servant’s debtor, literally -- mercy. There is, of course, the danger of thinking that all anger is always bad. That’s not true. Anger is an…