Today’s One-Liner (#330)
Eventually, as a tribute to Maritain’s influence on me and on many others, I wrote The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain: A Spiritual Life, and I advise any reader captivated by this little sketch…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
In Pursuit of Holiness
Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), a Frenchman, a layman, and a convert to Catholicism, became one of the most prominent figures in the Thomistic Revival. During World War II, the Maritains found themselves with other exiles in…
“What Is Literature?”
C. S. Lewis, who seems wiser the older I get, gave a series of lectures at Cambridge after transferring there from Oxford. These became An Essay on Criticism. As professor of Renaissance and Medieval Literature…
Today’s One-Liner (#329)
The calendar of the saints tells us that the more fervently and perfectly men and women imitate Christ, the more differentiated they become. –Ralph McInerny, I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life and…
Reading: Woes and Wonders
Ah! how many lights have I not drawn from the works of our holy Father, St. John of the Cross! At the ages of seventeen and eighteen I had no other spiritual nourishment; later on,…
Today’s One-Liner (#328)
The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth. –Saint Thomas Aquinas, in Josef Pieper, The Human Wisdom of St. Thomas, #128
30 Years Ago Today…
Mev died. I received a beautiful correspondence from Peggy Mosher this evening. She shared about reading The Book of Mev second time. Her son Pete studied with me at SLU in 2001; years later I…
Getting to Know New York
Although I was poor, it never bothered me. I went to the library and I could read. I liked to go on the Fifth Avenue bus, which had an upper level, just to sit there…
Today’s One-Liner (#327)
We always love to discuss and reveal character because human character is to us the greatest puzzle. –Isaac Bashevis Singer, in Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer, interviews by Richard Burgin, p. 47
Simplify
For there are only three kinds of good. So if a thing is not virtuous, useful, or pleasant, it’s not really good. So fagetaboutit! Simplify your life by throwing out all the things you have…