What is enlightenment? -- among angels and usMichael Pakaluk
intellectual historian I once knew used to say that you can really break through to understanding a deep thinker, if, when you encounter some bizarre passage, instead of dismissing it, you try to figure ...
The 'Catena Aurea': Read the Gospel this Advent with St. Thomas AquinasMichael Pakaluk
Suppose this Advent you were resolved to start reading the Bible on a daily basis, as the saints have advised and Pope Francis is famous for recommending: "It is very beautiful to think of life with the ...
Focus on GodEffie Caldarola
There's a certain apprehension lying over the nation right now, a fear, an uneasiness, a sense of walking in the dark. It doesn't matter how you voted in the recent election. There are things ...
Some thoughts upon returning from the second session of the synodBishop Robert Barron
I returned just a few days ago from the second session of the Synod on Synodality in Rome, and I will confess to feeling a tad exhausted. As I've mentioned before, the synod is a full four weeks long, ...
The actual great transformationMichael Pakaluk
I smile and look back with gentle pity when I think of myself as a newly converted Christian at Harvard, huddled together on Friday evenings in Phillips Brooks House with other members of the InterVarsity ...
Reunions in graveyardsEffie Caldarola
How do you lose a casket? My friend hasn't figured that out, but eventually, as Julian of Norwich assures us, all was well. We lived in Alaska then, and my friend's widowed mother had joined ...
Newman and the start of the academic yearMichael Pakaluk
The memorial of a canonized saint is typically his "dies natalis," his "birthday," the day he passed from this life and was born into everlasting life. But St. John Henry Newman died on Aug. 11, which ...
Deer in the dusky eveningEffie Caldarola
On a dusky fall evening, I take a walk down a familiar neighborhood street. Ahead of me, a small deer looks my way at the same moment I spot him. Freezing, I realize he's being followed by seven companions. ...
Underground RailroadEffie Caldarola
The window is closed, yet the roar of the New Jersey Turnpike just beyond the trees disturbs the stillness inside this old house, built in the woods of New Jersey around 1845 before automobiles or turnpikes ...
Demographic decline as caused by 'procreation'Michael Pakaluk
What do we do when we have children? I want to say that the two words we use for it, "reproduction" and "procreation," are almost at war with each other. The word "procreation" connotes what theologians ...
