In the eighth-century, St. John Damascene posed a challenge to Christians: If a pagan comes and asks you to show him your faith, take him to the Church and let him see the sacred icons” (St. John Damascene, Treatise on Images against Constantine Caballinus, 95-309, quoted in Thomas Merton, Disputed Questions, 158). We will return to this question.
The Church, Patron of the Arts
Beauty is a stepping stone to God, and the Church has earned a lasting place in history for inspiring a...
Last Sunday, the New York Times Magazine featured an article entitled, “God Who?” According to its reportage, a new and young crop of atheists, numbering in the thousands, has gradually emerged. Among these are pastors “recovering from Evangelical Christianity.” Those unaffiliated with a faith-tradition are being wooed by atheistic organizations who offer protest, denial, and negation.
Wholeness
For Christians, Jesus Christ, humanity’s redeemer, is the glory of God....
Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium describes the mystery of the Church in images such as a sheepfold, the kingdom, the People of God, and Christ’s own body. All images, including that of a symphony orchestra, merely point to the ineffable.
The Symphony as an Analogy for God’s Revelation in Christ
The Classical symphony is a large-scale, four-movement orchestral piece with a conductor. Franz Joseph Haydn (d 1809) is “the father of the symphony.”
The Church’s symphony is Jesus Christ, the...
The text of the Vigil of the Dormition in the Byzantine Rite anticipates with joy the feast that we celebrate on today:
O peoples, dance with joy and clap your hands with fervor; gather today in eagerness and jubilation and sing with glee, for the Mother of God is about to rise in glory, going up from the earth into heaven. It is to her we always sing hymns of praise, for she is the Mother of God.
The Dogma Explained
The feast of the Dormition and Assumption of the Mother of God commemorates...
On August 9, the Church celebrates the life of St. Edith Stein, Jewish philosopher, atheist-turned-Catholic convert, Discalced Carmelite nun, and martyr.
Known in religion as Sr. Teresa, Benedicta a Croce, (St. Teresa, Blessed by the Cross), she and her sister Rosa were arrested on August 2, 1942 and were transported by cattle train to the death camp at Auschwitz where, days later, they were killed in the gas chambers–simply because they were Jews.
She was canonized on October 11,...
From first to last, the Olympic Games focus on character in action, a combination of sacrifice and self-denial with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It’s this state of mind that we, the Olympic world, celebrate.
The father of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin (d 1937) confirms this philosophy: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The...
Today, men and women living the Ignatian charism celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus in 1540 as a peripatetic Order. It was commissioned to lead church reform regardless of where it would take its members. Of the 7,000 letters Ignatius wrote, some one hundred letters are addressed to women, most of whom helped him in various ways during those graced beginnings. “The Society owes its existence to many women,” writes Rogelio Garcia-Mateo...
During these summer months, the Church shares some wisdom with the faithful concerning relaxation, leisure, and entertainment. Relaxation and leisure satisfy our need for pleasure. Yet, even as we guard leisure as a precious value, in practice it is challenged everywhere because it is often dismissed as time wasted. Leisure disengages us from the cares of life to enjoy and wonder at natural or artistic beauty. At these times, we catch our breath to renew our lives – culturally, socially,...
Saints Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and Thérèse of Lisieux rank among the thirty-three Doctors of the Church. Their lives have played decisive roles in the building up of the Church, and their writings enrich for their theological content and spiritual doctrine. Who were these women.
St. Catherine of Siena (1347-80)
As a Third-Order Dominican religious woman, Catherine experienced God’s love not from books but from the immediacy of her own experiences in prayer. “Her doctrine...
There is nothing quite like the suffering that comes from separation or divorce. The rupture is so deep that it radically re-arranges one’s life. Nothing stays the same. Each day is one of distress and tears.
The first rule for survival is to restore order where chaos has reigned. Taking care of self, the children, and one’s employment must take priority. Allow God’s human instruments to heal the family. Two well-established online agencies can help: the North American...
