If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Year: 2020
Tolkien’s Legacy
The death of Christopher Tolkien as a nonagenarian ends a legacy, for it was this youngest son of the great J.R.R. that took – pardonnez le pun – good care of his father’s inimitable work. And imitated it has been, many, many times over, all to paler effect. For unlike the fantasy genre to which[…]
Thoughts on a Frigid Morn
It is minus 38 or so in Edmonton, without wind chill, too cold even for the penguins in their zoo; they have multiple feet of snow in Vancouver; minus twentysomething here where I write. The glaciers are doing quite fine. But global warming, global cooling, climate change, continues, and Greta’s gettin’ angrier. Anon, on to[…]
The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Agape Love
Theresa of Avila wrote that “love is like a perfume-filled room.” Could it be that we can only describe such an ineffable concept using symbol and metaphor? It is often said that God is love. Indeed, the seemingly most straightforward answer we have to the question of what is God is found in 1 John[…]
Faith and war
(Here is one from our archives, from 2014, and from Sarah Gould’s reflections, the world has not changed all that much in the last half-decade. Her thoughts are still worth pondering). Once I almost ran over a woman with my car. Years ago I was in a grocery store and a quiet, pretty lady about[…]
Treasure and Tradition: The Ultimate Guide to the Latin Mass
“This is not a ‘religious service’ or a scripture class; this is Heaven on Earth: it is where our God comes to us.” The Extraordinary Form of the Mass or the Latin Mass is the Tridentine Mass. Promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570, the Holy Mass was a reform of the Council of Trent[…]
The Costa and Celibacy
Pope Emeritus Benedict and Cardinal Sarah have just released a book in defence of clerical celibacy, just as Pope Francis is pondering relaxing the discipline, one that goes back to the origins of the priesthood, contrary to Protestant and Modernist revisionism (after all, Christ was a celibate). The underlying, central issue is continence, or the[…]
There is an inertia in our nature that makes us dull; and in our attempt to penetrate your truth we are held within the bounds of ignorance by the weakness of our minds. Yet we do comprehend divine ideas by earnest attention to your teaching and by obedience to the faith which carries us beyond[…]
Cardinal Zen’s Letter from the Heart to the College of Cardinals
(The following is excerpted from LifeSite news, and the full piece may be found here. For another take on the troubling situation in China, peruse also Douglas Farrow’s recent thoughts). LETTER FROM CARDINAL ZEN TO THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS: Your Eminence, Pardon the inconvenience my letter will cause you. It is just that, in conscience,[…]