The Custom of Reading Out Loud
Over the summer the Alcuin Institute hosted its first Catholic Imagination Fellowship. As part of this fellowship three college-aged scholars participated in two accredited, two-week intensive Great Books courses covering the ancient and medieval writers, as well as a two-week internship working with the staff of the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic….
Stop Christian Passer-by…and Pray
I have a lot of books. One of my favorite things in life is to have a comfortable chair, warm coffee, and a good book in my hands. It is a common occurrence that the book I sit down with will not be the same book I find myself reading…
On the Poem the Pearl & Seeking the Higher Good
We come upon a man who has lost something. A spotless pearl has slipped through his fingers and is now lost in the earth. He grieves and cries. His heart hurts with a cruel pain and a torment churns within his chest (Pearl, no. 2). He lays on the mound…
Caravaggio’s Light
In the Church of San Luigi de Francesi in Rome, there is a side chapel devoted to the life of St. Matthew. Hanging within the Contarelli chapel, there are three masterpieces by the Baroque artist Caravaggio. The paintings of the chapel, like a book, if read left to right, tell…
Solzhenitsyn and True Freedom
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stood before 20,000 people at the 1978 Harvard graduation ceremony. Aleksandr, a Russian, had spent ten years of hard labor in the Soviet gulags on trumped up charges before fleeing to the United States. He had risen to fame in the West by shining a light on Soviet…
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The Holy Angels
Today, September 29th, the Church celebrates the feast of the Archangels, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and St. Raphael, and on October 2nd celebrates the memorial of the Guardian Angels. In light of these liturgical celebrations, it would be good to have a basic understanding of angels and the role they…
The Argument from Existence: Aquinas’s Philosophical Approach to God
Aquinas’s argument for the existence of God starts from his commonsense theory of existence for particular things. For Aquinas, existence is something things present in reality actually have or participate in. Existence, in other words, is that in virtue of which something is included in reality, or actually is, instead…
30th Anniversary of Veritatis Splendor
St. John Paul II wrote, during his relatively lengthy reign as Supreme Pontiff, many noteworthy and helpful documents. His first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, reminded the faithful of the efficacy and universal scope of Jesus’s salvific work, setting the stage and tone for his entire pontificate; his last, Ecclesia de Eucharistia,…
St. Irenaeus on the Holy Eucharist
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a second-century Greek bishop that established churches in what is now the south of France, is a go-to Church Father when it comes to establishing the early Christian belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. His teaching is very clear: “the mixed cup…
Are you Vicious?
Are you a vicious person? The answer to this question depends on whether you have vice. But what is vice? Perhaps it’s best to contrast it with virtue. Where virtue is an enduring disposition, or habit, to perform good human acts—acts that are befitting our nature as human beings, vice…
Parents as Educators
As a new father, I look forward to the education of my daughter with a certain amount of anxiety and trepidation. Marriage is primarily for the sake of the procreation and education of children. Sometimes we forget about that second part. Especially from the standpoint of the father, procreation is…
Odysseus, Aslan, and Untamed Catholicism
We find our hero Odysseus on his journey home from the Trojan war. Ten years he fought on the plains before Troy; and now ten years more he will journey home. After several adventures, Odysseus and his men land on an island and come under the care of the witch…
St. Cyril of Jerusalem and the Mystagogy of Baptism
Sometime around the year 350, St. Cyril was named Bishop of Jerusalem. St. Cyril served as Bishop of Jerusalem during tumultuous times, both political and theological. During his reign as bishop, he was banished from his see three times and was three times reinstated. In 381 he was one of…
Pentecost and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit
There are key moments in our own lives, stages of development and achievements worth remembering and celebrating. We can think here of birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and so forth. Something like this is true of the Church’s life as well. We can think of the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, the Great…
Liberalism and Its Discontents
We are by nature social or political animals. We find our full flourishing as human beings not in isolation but in communion with other persons. And so Christ’s injunction not to be of the world (Jn. 17) does not necessitate being some place other than the world in which we…
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