I have had many friends in the course of my life, but only since growing older have I given much thought to the nature of friendship. I have amassed a collection of quotations on this theme that have impressed me deeply. The English essayist William Hazlitt: “He will never have true friends who . . . . Continue Reading »
We must have been fifteen or sixteen when we discovered the church visitor’s book. It was an old church, maybe medieval, and I would pass it with my school friends on our way to the town center. I’m not sure what possessed us to go in; it might have been my idea. I’ve always loved old . . . . Continue Reading »
According to the Talmud, the demons are more numerous than we are. “They stand over us like mounds of earth surrounding a pit.” Rav Huna teaches that “each and every one of us has a thousand demons to his left and ten thousand to his right.” Abba Binyamin tells us that “if the eye had the . . . . Continue Reading »
Is this liberal Catholicism’s big moment? In the Oval Office, a pro-abortion president sits with a photograph of the Holy Father displayed proudly over his left shoulder. In Germany, Europe’s most powerful bishops’ conference presses ahead with its “synodal path,” reassessing doctrine on . . . . Continue Reading »
“I shall search for a garden where I can retire, and renew my spirit during this time filled with divorces, plagues, epidemics, and those other tribulations with which our present moment is so troubled.” So begins one of the more remarkable sixteenth-century treatises, “The True Recipe” . . . . Continue Reading »
Death has a way of focusing the mind on the transcendent. It helped set off America’s First Great Awakening. In April 1734, the little community of Pascommuck, three miles outside Northampton, Massachusetts, suffered what Jonathan Edwards recalled as the “very sudden and awful death of a young . . . . Continue Reading »
Nicodemus learns two lessons—the two things that make up the content of Christian catechesis: earthly things and heavenly things. Continue Reading »
My commitment to God and to the truth of a book I believe to be his holy Word is the defining premise of my life, the focus of my faith, and the guiding directive for my actions. Continue Reading »
Canada's federal and provincial governments continue to operate under emergency powers that are said to trump the citizen's constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms. Continue Reading »
The early story of human creativity foreshadows the hinge of human history. Continue Reading »
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