And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it …
Category: Christianity
May 21 2021
Professionalization Versus Vocation
I’ve been in something of a state recently: a creeping sense of desperation, a desire to reject the evidence of my senses that’s almost strong enough to overwhelm my reason. Perhaps the best short characterization of that state is “Make it all go away!” Nevertheless, I remain committed to reality, and to the best, …
May 02 2021
Three Lives, Three Deaths
She was young. Far too young, by most reckonings, to be equipped to cope with tragedy. She’d been married only a short time when she discovered that she was pregnant…and only a short time later discovered that her baby daughter was anencephalic, incapable of living outside the womb. Against medical advice and …
Apr 28 2021
Faith And Fiction: A Rumination
The more you look, the more you see. — Robert M. Pirsig It’s amazing the way the realm of the mind expands, providing ever more room to prowl, and hopefully to grow, to him who is willing to look at significant subjects synthetically as well as analytically. Consider this observation from the great …
Apr 12 2021
A Couple Of Catholic Conundrums
An old tickler from many years ago is about the day a gaggle of theologians were confronted by a layman with a simple question: “Did Adam and Eve have navels?” The initial consensus answer was no. But, the layman objected, that doesn’t square with the notion that the first man and woman were the …
Apr 03 2021
“It Is Finished”
The coverage is extensive and multiply confirmed: Yet even today, two millennia after the event which transformed all of existence both natural and supernatural, men ask what He meant by that. Perhaps it’s simpler than we think. Perhaps it means only that, as He told His Apostles at the Last Supper, He …
Mar 21 2021
Deciding To Believe
Many Christians never face a moment when they must decide: “Can I accept this set of propositions called Christianity as credible…plausible…true, and worth committing my life to them?” In part, that’s because many of us who were “raised in the Faith” never get an opportunity to question its soundness. In equal part, it’s because …
Mar 17 2021
Faith Gives You Power…
…and power is required to do this: Bravo, young Americans. We need more of you.
Mar 10 2021
I Thought I Was Beyond Being Stunned
I was wrong: Milo Yiannopoulos, the gay man whose conservative messaging and willingness to speak the truth sparked riots on university campuses may well trigger more outrage now that he describes himself as “Ex-Gay” and “sodomy free,” and is leading a daily consecration to St. Joseph online. Two years ago, when Church …
Feb 28 2021
A Price Willingly Paid: A Lenten Reflection
In his defense of Christianity as a mystery religion, C. S. Lewis has told us that we must deal with the facts, and as John Adams has said, facts are stubborn things. Among the facts at hand, we have the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth and His subsequent Resurrection. The Passion …
Feb 02 2021
Lessons from Fantasy- the wisdom of J.R.R. Tolkien
Many people know of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit;” younger folk are more likely to know his work through the film adaptations of his work, while old fogeys like me read and loved his stories in printed form first, then enjoyed the movies, too. Young or old, however, Tolkien’s …
Jan 25 2021
The 13th Day
The world has been taught to scoff at that which it cannot see, hear, and touch. It has paid a heavy price for its scoffing. I trust I need not enumerate the many tragedies men have inflicted on one another, as faith has retreated and secular humanism, with its innate arrogance and vaulting ambition, …
Jan 18 2009
Life Stories
[The following was written by a dear friend – a young woman who can fairly be said to have saved my sanity – named Duyen Ky. It first appeared at the late, lamented Eternity Road on January 18, 2009. Today she lives in Southern California with her husband. – FWP] Welcome to Sunday! …
May 31 1997
Private Knowledge
I consider myself a Catholic. I also consider myself an agnostic. And while you’re catching your breath from that seeming contradiction, I’m going to indulge in a little word-splitting, hopefully of the consciousness-expanding kind. The original Gnostic controversy propelled a great deal of the early unrest within the Church. On one side stood …
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