First Things RSS Feed - Nathaniel Peters https://www.firstthings.com/author/nathaniel-peters en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:55:53 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/nathaniel-peters 60 Angelic Seeing https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/08/angelic-seeing https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/08/angelic-seeing Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0400 Passions of the Soul
by rowan williams
 bloomsbury, 160 pages, $15

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]]> Spiritual Communion https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/06/spiritual-communion https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/06/spiritual-communion Mon, 01 Jun 2020 06:00:00 -0400 During the Diocletian persecution, a group of North African Christians were brought to trial in Carthage for meeting illegally for worship. When asked why they had persisted in this practice, one replied, “Sine Dominico, non possumus”: “Without this thing of the Lord, we cannot live.” Over the past weeks, Christians of all kinds have gone without corporate worship, as church after church has closed to protect the faithful during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have prayed in our homes and livestreamed services. And we have wondered to what degree we are able to worship God as we did before, especially we Catholics and Orthodox, whose worship is consummated in the celebration of the Eucharist. If we are no longer able to receive the Eucharist, are we “sine Dominico”?

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]]> A Hidden Life: The Story of a Marriage https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/12/a-hidden-life-the-story-of-a-marriage https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/12/a-hidden-life-the-story-of-a-marriage Fri, 20 Dec 2019 07:15:00 -0500 I thought we could build our nest high up in the trees.” We hear the voice of Franz Jägerstätter as the Alps soar into a blanket of clouds on-screen. Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer executed in 1943 for resisting the Nazis, lived and died in obscurity. In 2007, he was beatified, and is now the subject of Terrence Malick’s new film, A Hidden Life .  

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]]> Briefly Noted https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/12/briefly-noted https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/12/briefly-noted Sun, 01 Dec 2019 06:00:00 -0500 God Visible:
Patristic Christology Reconsidered
 by brian e. daley, s.j.
oxford, 312 pages, $88

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]]> The Church’s Bigger Agenda https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/01/the-churchs-bigger-agenda https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/01/the-churchs-bigger-agenda Wed, 30 Jan 2019 11:20:00 -0500 A number of America’s Catholic bishops care more about the Church’s public image than about the welfare of teenage boys.

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]]> The Heart of the Psalms https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/12/the-heart-of-the-psalms https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/12/the-heart-of-the-psalms Tue, 12 Dec 2017 06:00:00 -0500 Over the course of ten days in early November, New Yorkers had the opportunity to attend Lincoln Center’s The Psalms Experience : twelve concerts with a capella settings of all 150 psalms, with the occasional organ accompaniment. The psalms were grouped according to twelve subjects. No composer was used more than once.

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]]> Thus Saith the Lord https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/11/thus-saith-the-lord https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/11/thus-saith-the-lord Wed, 01 Nov 2017 00:00:00 -0400 One Sunday in high school, we went to the Anglo-Catholic parish where my headmaster served as an assistant priest. Catechized by evangelical Episcopalians and Presbyterians, I believed that the Bible was divinely inspired by God. But I had never seen it treated as such in a physical or ritual way. Down Mr. Jarvis came, robed in damask and the smoke of incense, into the congregation to sing and kiss the Word of God. He spoke the words of the King James Bible, a language steeped in the same reverence for Scripture that the liturgy made manifest.

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]]> The Convert's Neurosis: A Cocktail Recipe https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2017/08/the-converts-neurosis-a-cocktail-recipe https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2017/08/the-converts-neurosis-a-cocktail-recipe Fri, 11 Aug 2017 16:50:00 -0400

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]]> Briefly Noted https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/08/briefly-noted https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/08/briefly-noted Tue, 01 Aug 2017 00:00:00 -0400 On the Road to Vatican II: German Catholic Enlightenment and Reform of the Church
by ulrich l. lehner
 fortress, 414 pages, $49

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]]> Briefly Noted https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/04/briefly-noted https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/04/briefly-noted Sat, 01 Apr 2017 00:00:00 -0400 The Contemplative Hunger
 by father donald haggerty
ignatius, 259 pages, $17.95

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