Mary, Seat of Wisdom

by R. R. Reno

In the Virgin Mary we can identify the dispositions, qualities, and virtues we need to be truth-receivers and truth-givers, which is to say, genuine intellectuals. Continue Reading »

23 Oct 2018

The Gold Virgin

by Kenneth Colston

When conventions are aligned with morality, keeping up appearances is sane.  Continue Reading »

13 Sep 2018

Mary and the Art of Prayer

by Mark Bauerlein

Featuring Rachel Fulton Brown on her book Mary and the Art of Prayer.  Continue Reading »

22 Jun 2018

Our Lady of Everything

by Nathan Ristuccia

Mary and the Art of Prayer: The Hours of the Virgin in Medieval Christian Life and Thoughtby rachel fulton browncolumbia, 656 pages, $75 In thirteenth-century France there lived a monk who served as confessor for many townspeople, including a beautiful married woman. Both the laywoman and her . . . . Continue Reading »

1 May 2018

What Mary Teaches

by R. R. Reno

By clarifying what God has done in the person of Mary, the Church teaches the faithful that human flesh is capable of remarkable feats of holiness. Continue Reading »

5 Sep 2017

Women of Advent and Christmas II: Elizabeth, Relative of God

by John Mark Reynolds

Nobody knew her name, but then she burst into history after a long life. Elizabeth was a failure by the standards of her culture, but God loved her. Just when most friends thought her time had past, Elizabeth found herself at the beginning of Christmas.There is hope in her life for any of us.God . . . . Continue Reading »

8 Dec 2009

Death on a Friday Afternoon

by Richard John Neuhaus

Exploration into God is exploration into darkness, into the heart of darkness. Yes, to be sure, God is light. He is the light by which all light is light. In the words of the Psalm, “In your light we see light.” Yet great mystics of the Christian tradition speak of the darkness in which the light is known, a darkness inextricably connected to the cross. At the heart of darkness the hope of the world is dying on a cross, and the longest stride of soul is to see in this a strange glory. In John’s Gospel, the cross is the bridge from the first Passover on the way out of Egypt to the new Passover into glory. In his first chapter he writes, “We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” The cross is not the eclipse of that glory but its shining forth, its epiphany. In John’s account, the death of Jesus is placed on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan, precisely the time when the Passover lambs were offered up in the temple in Jerusalem. Lest anyone miss the point, John draws the parallel unmistakably. The legs of Jesus are not broken, the soldier pierces his side and John writes, “For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Not a bone of him shall be broken.’ And again another scripture says, ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced.’” In the book of Exodus, God commands that no bone of the paschal lamb is to be broken. Then there is this magnificent passage from the prophet Zechariah: “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” Continue Reading »

16 Apr 2009