The Narthex

Late on a Sunday morning I walked into the nursing home to visit Della. I peeked into her double-occupancy room. Her bed was closest to the hall door, and she lay there with her eyes closed. But she somehow knew when to open them and look at me. Though her…

As the spiritual influence of the Church has waned in the West, it has created a spiritual void in the lives of many people.  Devoid of religion, the people still desire to be “spiritual but not religious.”  Nature abhors a vacuum, so this void is being filled by a great…

Pope Benedict XVI once famously remarked that the Church of the future "will become small."  Rather than exercising some prophetic gift, the Pope was simply exercising an awareness of history.  Each time the Church becomes comfortable, it falls into decline and dwindles to a remnant through which it will be…

Hugo Rahner, SJ, is the author of a classic work Man at Play. The central and staggering insight of Man at Play is that God is at play! How so? Proverbs 8:27-31 gives us a starting point. From the beginning, Rahner points out, Divine Wisdom (Hochmah) has been “playing before…

On my regular walks each evening, I pass by a public building where meetings are held almost every night. Two ladies stood outside chatting at 8:25 PM, and I approached them. “What is this meeting about, and is it open to the public?” I asked. “Come and see,” the younger…

On October 13th John Henry Newman will be canonized, the first English person in modern times to be raised to the altar. Newman comes to us as an eminent Victorian and a convert. Some say his canonization has been long in coming because he was prolific and polemical. Whether or…

The Earth is flat.  Not actually flat, but flat in the sense that man no longer sees a horizon.  Do you want proof of that?  Look no further than Labor Day.  Invented to “celebrate” American workers and their achievements, it is now little more than a bookend marking the end…

A recent Pew Research Center survey shows that nearly seven out of 10 Catholics don't believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  They see the Eucharist as "a symbol."  Alarming numbers, perhaps, but not at all surprising.  Anyone who attends Mass even semi-regularly would likely come to…

One is tempted to view feast days of the Church with a certain abstract detachment.  The events they mark seem relegated to the past and thus lack a certain realness to them.  But the Solemnity of the Assumption keeps us from succumbing to this temptation.  Among the many Marian feast…

Domestic terrorism. Religious persecution, both secular and professedly religious. The posturing of pro-abortion extremists. Assaults on democracy. Economic wars. Some weeks it’s crushingly obvious: we live in a valley of tears. Psalm 84:6-8 speaks of such a valley. So does the Marian anthem, “Hail, Holy Queen,” which so many recite…

The philosopher Simone Weil’s Waiting on God (1950) is a haunting reflection on the distance between “the everyday” and the transcendent. A year earlier the playwright Samuel Beckett finished his Waiting for Godot. Beckett’s “Godot” is a fantasist’s inkblot: interpret him as you please. Not so the God to whom…

Earlier this month, under pressure from LGBT groups, Amazon stopped selling books by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi.  Dr. Nicolosi was well known for reparative therapy that helped many people overcome the temptation to same-sex attraction.  Of course, the fact that Dr. Nicolosi wanted to free people from both disordered inclinations and…

A faithful member of my writing critique group was moving out of state, so we threw her a goodbye party. I sat at the end of a foldout table on a spacious patio, talking with a newer member, a man in his eighties writing a novel based on his experiences…

When Christ gave to His followers freedom from the law, He was, in essence, promising them freedom from reliance on loopholes.  No longer bound toes to a line, our feet were unshackled to roam the fields of freedom.  The problem is that reliance on loopholes has…

The last decade has seen incredible growth in the number of people who regularly practice yoga. Despite its popularity, most practitioners are woefully ignorant of its roots and meaning.  Many Catholics can be counted among this group.  In fact, some parishes even going so far as to host “Mommy’s Morning…