The Narthex

Vatican II talked about the Church in dialogue with the modern world. Some of us have wondered whether that dialogue has been largely one-sided, i.e., modernity talking and the Church listening. One hopes the dialogue also would proceed in the other direction, to a world largely convinced of its rightness…

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr. St. Lawrence is probably best known popularly for being martyred alive on a gridiron and for his remark about being “well-done on this side, turn me over!” The jocularity tends to obscure just how barbaric a death Lawrence died during…

Six months ago, you were toasting the new year 2024. Six months from now, hopefully you will say goodbye to 2024 and welcome the new year 2025, the quarter century mark. We just celebrated Midsummer’s Night on June 21-22. We’re now at midyear. “Midsummer” you say? Wasn’t it just the…

What happens when you google “spiritual director near me”? You’ll instantly find an assortment of spiritualists and their handy contact information. Not what you are looking for? Better keep looking and look elsewhere. Take your time. A priest friend who is a spiritual director at a Benedictine Abbey says that…

In the wake of Vatican II, all sorts of Catholic practices and popular devotions were deconstructed. The process often occurred for simplistic and callow reasons, with no thought to why those practices and devotions had become so established or what would be lost -- including in terms of follow-on effects…

April 1 has arrived, this year as Easter Monday. We’re in the Octave of Easter and approaching the great Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday. One thing many people won’t note, except perhaps accountants and economists, is that the first quarter of 2024 is now over. Yes, perhaps it’s hard to…

When sorely pressed, my mother often said, “Let’s put it all in God’s hands.” Such was the path to peace. But of what sort? Friends of the indefatigable socialist Norman Thomas often commented that he never lost his capacity for outrage. But to what end? Of late, both Mom’s adage…

The Church offers two formulae as options to be used during imposition of ashes, the sign of penance. The older formula is “Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you will return.” The newer one is actually not new at all, because it repeats the first public words…

Ideas for essays are sometimes like grace: they come from the most unexpected places. Today’s comes from Facebook, in a post by Scott Hahn about failure. Hahn posted a passage from St. Josemaría Escrivà’s rich book of spiritual aphorisms, The Way. The excerpt (no. 405) deals specifically with failure. “So you…

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…

Thanksgiving is, for most Americans, a long weekend. Almost all children get out of school on Wednesday and don't return until Monday. Most institutions other than stores and commercial enterprises all take the long weekend. At some point Thanksgiving became something of a segue into the "Christmas season" and --…

This morning I left for work a little after the sun had risen -- not unusual with days shorter and clocks turned back one hour. As I walked across my parking lot, a couple of squirrels were busy on the old oak tree, about whose acorns pelting my window pane…

Nat King Cole sang about “the falling leaves [that] drift by the window/the autumn leaves of red and gold.” Drifting autumn leaves suggest a quiet, peaceful sweep outside one’s casement. Last weekend was anything but. Fall was at its peak in Virginia and Saturday was a gloriously sunny day. As…

In the wake of California Senator Dianne Feinstein's burial, op-ed writers have been scribbling away on why America’s leadership class is so dominated by octogenarians (with a few septuagenarians as junior officers). Writing in The New York Times (Oct. 8), David French picked up Ross Douthat’s most recent hobby horse:…