Topics

The Burden of History & the Promise of Divine Life

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #57

Edmund B. Miller

After grappling with "A Canticle for Leibowitz," I found that Walter M. Miller Jr.’s novel attempts to study nothing less than the whole problem of history.

Time & the Longing for Eternity

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #56

Edmund B. Miller

Flannery O'Connor’s writing is not grotesque, not fantastic; it’s merely simple — which is to say that for her, in the end, there are only two options: time or eternity.

Finding God’s Will in Each Moment

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #55

David D. Jividen

In the many stories of saints who followed their inspirations despite the seeming impossibility of what God was asking them to do, He was the source of life for these souls.

Why a Self-Indulgent Age Needs a Rough Religion

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #53 & #54

Kenneth Colston

Penance is man’s pitiful part in cooperation with grace, an extreme method necessary to combat the difficulties posed by the passion and the pride of man.

Is There Such a Thing as Catholic Feminism?

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #52

Annesley Anderson

Kristin Lavransdatter’s story shows that following our own desires brings pain but also that God remains with us and draws us into His love and service.

Man’s Natural Aptitude for the Divine

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #51

Edmund B. Miller & Monica Blaney

Willa Cather, in Death Comes for the Archbishop, offers a clear literary portrait of a man who sees the divine in the ordinary.

Chesterton on Man, the Religious Animal

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED #50

Carl Sundell

GKC asserts that Jesus was not merely one of many great figures in history; rather, He is at the center of all history: past, present, and future.

Fragmented Lives of Incomplete Reckoning

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #49

Edmund B. Miller

Man’s efforts are lost if they are not embedded in and do not proceed from the eternal perspective, without which they remain fragmented impulses.

Your Guide to the Interior Life

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #48

F. Douglas Kneibert

The Imitation is the finest work of Catholic spirituality. Thomas à Kempis’s voice speaks to us today with the same authority that his monks heard nearly six centuries ago.

Is Modern Man Too Healthy for Literature?

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #47

Thomas S. Martin

Americans do read — street signs, job applications, directions for installing video games, glossy magazines. But, sad to say, most Americans do not read literature.

To Die from Having Lived

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #46

Mitchell Kalpakgian

It is to have performed the obligations of one's vocation, to have used one's gifts and opportunities to give glory to God and serve others.

When No Man Was His Own

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #45

Ian Hunter

The plot of 'The Tempest' is threadbare and fantastical. Shakespeare is less concerned with unfolding a story than with unfolding characters.

A Surrender Total & Complete

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #44

F. Douglas Kneibert

In preparation to embrace God’s providence, Fr. Caussade has us renounce our self-love, our will, our efforts, our plans, and our fears, anxieties, and doubts.

Freedom, But to What End?

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #43

Christopher Gawley

'Torrents of Spring' appears almost intentional in its diminishment of patriarchy. Turgenev does not seem to connect the tragedy of his characters to the absence of their fathers.

The Tears of a Cleric

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #42

Anne Barbeau Gardiner

Bernanos has much to teach us about the clerical state, particularly that being a priest is not really about power, unless it is the power of self-sacrifice.

A Lifeboat for a Sinking Society

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #41

Stephen J. Kovacs

Not seeing man for what he is would be insanity. We must strive for sanity, which consists in "seeing what is, living in the reality of things."

Average Is Not Normal

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #40

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Normal signifies the way things ought to be, according to a fixed moral or divine standard. Average frequently denotes middle in the sense of mediocrity.

Through a Lens, Darkly

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #39

Stanley T. Grip Jr.

Excessive confidence in the supposedly foolproof technical quality of America’s nuclear-weapon system is the subject of the classic thriller "Fail-Safe."

A Thomistic Vision of Man's Final End

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #38

Rob Agnelli

Dante relied heavily on the philosophy of Aquinas to construct his epic. The Divine Comedy has been referred to as the “Summa in verse.”

Purgatory on Earth

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #37

Christopher Gawley

Dostoyevsky's 'The Idiot' is a profound testament to the power of purgatorial justice and mercy. A lifelong anti-Catholic, he did not connect it to dogma.

Manipulation, Murder & Madness

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #36

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Martyrdom in Mexico: Graham Greene's Masterpiece

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #35

F. Douglas Kneibert

At its heart, The Power and the Glory is about the conflict between Caesar and God, with the lieutenant symbolizing the power and the lowly priest the glory.

On Gratitude & Growing Up

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #34

Matthew Anger

Dickens's best tales have the cadence of great drama, and there is something universal and enduring in his depiction of life's mysteries that we all relate to yet can't explain.

What Is Free Time For?

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #33

Kevin Duffy

Because we are ultimately not the source of our own value or knowledge, then "finding ourselves" is not the ultimate goal; finding (or approaching) the truth is.

The Invalid Identification of Contraries With Contradictories

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #32

Donald DeMarco

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's magnum opus, might be the most perplexing and infuriating novel ever written.

Misreading a Masterpiece

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #31

Kenneth Colston

Critical approaches to Cervantes ignore that substantially documented biographical facts of his life do establish that he was a practicing and ardent Catholic.

Ancient Perspective on the Postmodern Condition

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #30

Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

The classics could teach what virtue is, but they could not figure out a way to practice it. The Christian would argue for the help of grace. But even with grace things go wrong.

Shelter From the Storm

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #29

Elaine Hallett

Lear is able to pull back from his obsession to pledge that "I will be the pattern of all patience"; patience, he knows, is the remedy he needs if he is to retain his sanity.

Elemental & Sophisticated Evil

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #28

Mitchell Kalpakgian

The evil that dominates the modern world wears the cloak of legal authority and moral respectability yet strives to expunge every trace of true goodness.

Saints of Social Revolution

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #27

Christopher Gawley

Tolstoy was a world-class novelist and a great and influential heretic: His avant-garde views heralded today’s liberal and relativistic Christians.

Recalling the Glories of the Faith

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #26

F. Douglas Kneibert

Karl Adam's great achievement is to remind us of the inexhaustible resources the Church possesses to carry out her task.

Advice to Hell Raisers

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED #24 & #25

Carl Sundell

Lies are easier to spread than in the old days, when there were many more farmers than there were scholars, and farmers were harder to fool.

The Third Man & the Third Millennium

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #23

John Martin

Graham Greene sees the most dangerous thing of all: ordinary human beings unwilling to distinguish between the dollar and the cross.

To Question Authority

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED #22

Christopher Gawley

Turgenev captures an authentic truth in his work: Boys who do not respect their fathers' authority will respect no authority at all.

Three Victorian Morality Tales

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #19-21

Matthew Anger

See how three authors — in varying degrees of sympathy with, or hostility toward, Christianity — expressed their conception of the basic struggle between good and evil.

We Reap What We Sow

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED #18

Mitchell Kalpakgian

The perennial truths about marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, and children in 'Little Women' reflect the accumulated wisdom of Western civilization and Christian culture.

Whispering Glades Revisited: No Catholics Allowed

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #17

Edwin Fussell

A Twitch Upon the Thread

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #16

Charles Hallett

The Aesthetics of God

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #15

Edwin Fusell

A Neo-Thomist's Defense of Democracy

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED #14

Glenn N. Schram

The Incarnational Mind vs. the Captive Mind

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #13

Jean Bethke Elshtain

The Medievalism of Etienne Gilson

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #12

Avery Dulles

Art: Contemplation or Commodity?

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #11

Ronald Austin

The Other War We Lost in Vietnam

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #10

Charles Owen Rice

President Johnson was seduced by his macho superpatriotism into the morass of Vietnam, and so the war against poverty was lost too.

C.S. Lewis's Divine Comedy

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #9

Sheldon Vanauken

Orthodoxy — as Opposed to Fundamentalism, Theological Liberalism & Integralism

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #8

John R. Quinn

That Incomprehensible Mystery at the Heart of All Things

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, # 7

Michael E. Smith

Like Oedipus, we humans are prone to suppose that we can understand all things on earth — perhaps in heaven also — and can thereby control them.

Christianity's Great Rival

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #6

John Rossi

The Degradation of Work, Yesterday & Today

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #5

Christopher Lasch

The Spanish Civil War: Beyond the Legends

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #4

Jose M. Sanchez

Intellectual Opportunism & the Arteriosclerosis of the American Intelligentsia

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, # 3

John Lukacs

A Shower-Bath from the Height of 500 Million Years

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #2

Will Hoyt

The Conspiratorial World View of Whittaker Chambers

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #1

John Lukacs

The road from the Hiss-Chambers case to an American president’s advocacy of the idea of the Evil Empire was straight, though slow.