The Pope leaned toward her, so that “their faces nearly touched,” and Thérèse hurriedly whispered her desire (despite her bishop’s opposition) to become a Carmelite nun. Leo, flustered by this breach of protocol, first ventured a conventional response: “Ah well, my child, do what the . . . . Continue Reading »
I am no lazy lover with sweeping grandeurs of small talk. Words, you discover are passing; love endures. Proffered is no measured length of the potential soul. Rather, influence of strength, corner-stone, cemented whole. The senses know the form and smile and eyes of love, but the lover’s norm is . . . . Continue Reading »
Starlings may mean more than we supposed,Their ugliness but a guiseHiding beauties too deep to probe.Look how they adorn the barren oak,Mimicking so many black and restless leaves,Remnants, making what to them is musicAgainst a sky whose blue is nearly white,This winter day as still as God’s own . . . . Continue Reading »
People who talk overmuch about beginning a new phase of life often appear quite foolish. After all, we rarely know until much later the meaning of our past and the promise of our future. Our ignorance and confusion alone ought to suggest that at times of transition (like the beginning of a new . . . . Continue Reading »
In his engagingly titled book, What’s Wrong With the World, G. K. Chesterton argued that his fellow citizens could not repair the defects of the family because they had no ideal at which to aim. Neither the Tory (Gudge) nor the Socialist (Hudge) had an ideal that viewed the family as sacred, an . . . . Continue Reading »