The Benedict Option for a “Monastic” Church

Abstract Rod Dreher proposes what he calls the “Benedict Option,” by which he means a return to a monastic paradigm for Christian life, opting for the City of God in contrast to the City of Man. This world isn’t our home. It’s the desert th … [Read more...]

Maintaining the Liturgy in a Homily Surrounded by Technology

Does technology enhance or diminish a homily? Should we use technology in homiletics? These questions don’t elicit an agreed-upon answer, and often focus on the art of preaching itself. Let’s take a representative example from each side. Dr. … [Read more...]

The New Pagans and the Church

A 1958 Lecture by Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). Translated by Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.

According to religious statistics, old Europe is still a part of the earth that is almost completely Christian. But there is hardly another case in which everyone knows as well as they do here that the statistic is false: This so-called … [Read more...]

Life with God

God cannot exist in any place or at any time, though God is present to anything in any place, and the proposition that God exists will be true at any time that it is uttered or conceived. Thus eternity, which properly belongs to God alone, … [Read more...]

The Slant of Glory

“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Glory be to the Father…” (Ps 126:1) (Introit from the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.) In America, the gravity of major weekend games, … [Read more...]

“Your Ways Are Not My Ways”

Where is God to be found in our secularized western world? It is as if the volume has been turned up on all the distractions and temptations that plague us every single day. Not just the volume, but also the intensity. Everything we see and … [Read more...]

Hand to the Plow

The religious sister’s separation from family and friends means that ... in order to “put one’s hand to the plow” (Lk 9:59-60) one may not look back ... in order to attend to the “one thing necessary.” Introduction One of the distinctiv … [Read more...]