The Church today suffers from a deficiency in her identity, lacking awareness of both her Marian and Petrine dimensions. I borrow these concepts from Hans Urs von Balthasar to explore the feminine and masculine aspects of the Church. In some ways we have become a neuter Church, lacking both Mary’s feminine receptivity toward Christ and … Read more
On Palm Sunday, and again on Good Friday, we will hear and take part in one of the most infamous scenes in Christian history. We will read the Gospel account (from the synoptics on Palm Sunday, this year from the Gospel according to Luke, and from the Gospel according to John, as always, on Good … Read more
Peter and Paul, the Fathers of great Rome, Now sitting in the Senate of the skies, One by the cross, the other by the sword, Sent to their thrones on high, to Life’s eternal prize. Elpis, the wife of Boethius, sings the praises of St. Peter and St. Paul in her Latin poem, Decora lux … Read more
“When we come to the service of Christ, we come to a rough profession.” The Jesuit poet and Elizabethan martyr, St. Robert Southwell, reminded his fellow prisoners of this sober truth in his “Epistle of Comfort.” He composed the letter lest they, jailed for the Catholic Faith, be tempted to forget that the Cross is … Read more
The Challenger disaster, the shooting of Ronald Reagan, the fatal crash of Ayrton Senna, and the assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II — I remember exactly what I was doing for these events. But while I don’t remember exactly where I was when I heard of the pontiff’s forgiveness of Mehmet Ali Agca, I … Read more
When I think of the Vatican Secret Archives, I pretty much have in mind the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark. (If anyone has the Ark of the Covenant hidden away in a box in the basement, it’s going to be them.) So when news came that the Archives has recently published a book … Read more