Category: Commonplace book

(Back to) Augustine

But there comes a time when we know that something is missing. And when this time comes, we need to know where to turn. Often, I will suggest, we should turn to Augustine himself. Without…

Stories Matter

Stories move us in ways arguments and theories cannot. In ways we may not even notice, the stories of others rework the way we see the world. The stories of true heroes remind us of…

Today’s One-Liner (#204)

I felt charity enter into my soul, and the need to forget myself and to please others; since then I’ve been happy!  –Saint Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul: Autobiography

So Long Ago and So Modern

St. Francis anticipated all that is most liberal and sympathetic in the modern mood; the love of nature; the love of animals; the sense of social compassion; the sense of the spiritual dangers of prosperity…

Dis-ease and Cure

The gospel invites us to enter the mystery of our own disabilities, hidden or otherwise. We need not fear those moments of being secret “lepers” ourselves, those parts of our being we hide away and…

Living the Beatitudes

Even when they call us mad,When they call us subversives and communistsAnd all the epithets they put on us,We know that we only preach The subversive witness of the Beatitudes,Which have turned everything upside downTo proclaim…

Ask the Good Sisters

Would the re-sacralization of the priesthood pull the Church back from her work with the poor and the friendless? Would we become a house of self-regarding bourgeois pietism? Well, seek out for yourself a slum…

Up to Us

If you’re looking for a silver lining in these years of chaos and rancor, consider this: We now know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the calvary ain’t coming.  We know that our elected officials,…

“What’s Wrong with the World?”

Around the turn of the last century, a prominent London newspaper called The World put the following question to its readers, offering a prize for the best possible answer: “What’s wrong with the world?” Not the newspaper, of…