Some days ago, a friend shared with me a lecture that Jacques Barzun had given in 1969 entitled “Present Day Thoughts on the Quality of Life.” It had just recently been rediscovered and was published this month in “The American Scholar." In it he speaks of, for all their questionable tendencies, the valid critique of western culture that inhered in the revolutionary movements of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Given the secular and rational-functional reductionism of our culture, we have come to identify usefulness with human value. And if this was true in 1969, it is even more true…[read more]
Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord? / or who may stand in God’s holy place? / The one whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, / who desires not what is vain. Psalm 24:3-4 As Advent draws toward its conclusion, the figure of Mary becomes more and more focal. She is first…[read more]
After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree, the Lord God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?” Genesis 3:9-12 And…[read more]
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