“Deep within everyone’s heart, whether he knows it or not, is a yearning for supreme happiness and thus, ultimately, for God. Such a primordial human longing for completion is fulfilled by a monastery where the community gathers several times a day for the praise of God.”

So said Pope Benedict XVI, on his visit last fall to the ancient Cistercian monastery of the Holy Cross, Stift Heiligenkreuz, in Austria’s Vienna woods. The large stone abbey, a blend of Gothic and Romanesque architecture, has been a site of unbroken prayer since its founding in 1133 by St. Leopold III. In the nine hundred years since, the abbey has endured the Reformation, French Revolution, two world wars–and recent decades have brought a resurgence in monastic vocations, with nearly eighty monks now gathered together in the austere but joyous tradition of ora et labora. (Spectacular pictures here and here.)

The monks maintain some eighteen parishes as well as a Pontifical Theological Academy, but the primary apostolate of the order is prayer and praise of God, specifically in communal chanting of the Divine Office. Prayer is not just part of their schedule, a five-times-a-day punctuation of their daily work. Rather, prayer is their schedule, their rhythm, their purpose, their life.

But what does all this have to do with the Marthas of the world, with those busied by many things? Or, more radically, what does it have to do with those who have never seen the Lord’s face–and never even thought to look?

A great deal, if we are to believe pop music charts in the U.K. By luck–or grace—the Heiligenkreuz Cistercians were surprised with a Universal Music recording contract last winter, and they released an album, Chant: Music for Paradise, this May. Within a week, their album was among the top ten for British pop-music sales. Said HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo, “Monastic chanting has to be the ultimate chill music.”

That’s one way to put it. Or, as Cistercian Abbot Gregor Henckel Donnersmark observed: “When the monks sing, the chant opens our hearts. We hope it purifies our souls and helps us regain charity, light, strength, and peace. Where there is chaos, we seek to restore order. Where there is emptiness, we try to find meaning. And where there is sadness, joy can return.”

“Gregorian chant is our prayer,” added Father Karl Wallner, O.Cist. “The music not only calms, it also gives strength. It is as though one crosses a spiritual border and leaves the superficial world behind. Gregorian chant opens the heart for God.”

But prosaic description only goes so far; to be understood, sacred music needs to be heard, needs to be prayed. Deep within everyone’s heart, whether he knows it or not . . . “

The Washington Post has a review of The Lolita Effect, a book that focuses on the sexualization of young girls and asks what can be done about it. Based on the review, the book is solid when it comes to showing how this early sexualization hurts young girls and produces other social ills (child pornography, rape, eating disorders, etc). But it’s interesting to see what happens when the author looks for an alternative to the hypersexualized culture. If we’re going to replace this culture, we’ll need a clear, coherent, and reasoned proposal for what human sexuality should be. Jennifer Ruark, the reviewer, writes:

From her first sentence (”The Lolita Effect begins with the premise that children are sexual beings”) to numerous descriptions of herself as “pro-sex” and “pro-media,” Durham takes pains to show that she is no prude or censor. But she sees a vast gulf between healthy female sexuality and the one dictated by “hooker chic,” which is all about turning boys on with the public display of girls’ bodies (thin, of course, yet voluptuous). Why, Durham asks, can’t girls’ sexuality be about their own pleasure? And why must teenage girls, in particular, live in fear of slipping over the delicate line “between acceptable hotness and unacceptable sluttiness”? Girls should be allowed to say no to virginity pledges and to “Girls Gone Wild,” Durham argues. But she does not develop a clear definition of healthy sexuality, beyond describing it as “inclusive, diverse, and affirming” and unyoked from commerce (emphasis mine).

The University of Louisville had a contract with Duke University for a series of four football games over the course of a few years, but Duke pulled out of the series after the first game. Whereupon, Louisville sued for $450,000—pointing out, quite reasonably, that the contract between the schools called for a penalty of $150,000 per game, “if a date with a ‘team of similar stature’ could not be arranged.”

Louisville, however, lost its lawsuit, for the lawyers from Duke showed up in court and argued that “the Blue Devils, which have a record of 6-45 over the past five seasons, were so bad that any team would be a suitable replacement.” As the judge observed in his decision, “At oral argument, Duke (with a candor perhaps more attributable to good legal strategy than to institutional modesty) persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower. Duke’s argument on this point cannot be reasonably disputed by Louisville.”

It’s a legal strategy that has, one imagines, many other useful applications.

(Hat Tip: Eugene Volokh)

You are the Democratic candidate for president. You want to reach out to Catholics. So what do you do when the majority of the elected officials on your National Catholic Advisory Council have the seal of approval from NARAL Pro-Choice America?

Bill McGurn explains in his Wall Street Journal column.

Nathaniel Peters has a nice review as this week’s “Book of the Week” for Books and Culture. Here’s how John Wilson, the editor of B&C, describes it:

Our current Book of the Week is Mystics, by William Harmless, reviewed by Nathaniel Peters, who commends it as a lucid guide to a subject that has occasioned a good deal of muddle and flimflam. Nathaniel is a junior fellow at First Things, where—in addition to publishing a very fine magazine—they send a steady stream of interns and fellows (of both sexes) out into the public square.

And here are Nathaniel’s opening two paragraphs:

The word mystic does not bring to mind edifying images for most Christians these days. It smacks of a vapid, Southern California mindset, readily exploited by marketers of tea and juice and such. For the more historically minded, mystic might suggest the wild-haired, unwashed visionaries off in the wilderness—not, in other words, something of much concern to everyday believers as they balance their finances or play catch with their kids.

But true mystics are far from amorphously spiritual. As Bernard McGinn has put it, “no mystic (at least before the present century) believed in or practiced ‘mysticism.’ They believed in and practiced Christianity (or Judaism, or Islam, or Hinduism), that is, religions that contained mystical elements as part of a wider historical whole.” McGinn’s work serves as the starting point for William Harmless, a professor of theology at Creighton University, whose new book Mystics is a walk through the lives and teachings of eight great mystics: Thomas Merton, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, Bonaventure, Meister Eckhart, and Evagrius Ponticus from the Christian tradition, as well as the Sufi poet Rumi and the Buddhist divine Dogen.