Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

Hypervisible Church

From First Thoughts

When a nun is stopped on the street, it is often so that a person can work out their issues with the Church, not with her. And when Fr. Jacques Hamel is made to kneel and die, it is the Church that is attacked in his body. Continue Reading »

Katharine Drexel

From Web Exclusives

In my bilingual Catholic parish, the nativist undercurrent of the campaign season looms loudly over the Latinos while the whites discuss the latest battle over religious liberty in hushed shock. This campaign season has people fearing the end of something, be it a way of life, a political party, or . . . . Continue Reading »

Christina Rossetti’s Lenten Life

From Web Exclusives

The Victorian poet Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) is most celebrated for her popular Christmas carols, but her most prolific liturgical season was Lent. A fervent Anglican, Rossetti expressed in her poems a deeper understanding of suffering than pieces like “Love Came Down At Christmas” might lead you to suspect. In her Lenten poetry, she focuses not only on her own sins, but highlights how her intense brokenness united her to God. Continue Reading »

The Fashioned Self

From Web Exclusives

This week, over 100,000 fashion insiders will gather in New York’s Lincoln Center for dozens of designer shows at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Copies of copies of copies of this year’s outlandish silhouettes and bizarre prints will end up in our closets a few years from now, and we will wonder how we ever thought them strange. You might not know, however, that the industry and the art Fashion Week showcases are just a few hundred years old. Continue Reading »