The Wittenberg Door

Martin Heidegger’s Lost Saints

Heidegger’s life and work are a lesson to so many confused, angry, and lonely young Western people today who feel out of place in a toxic post-millennial world torn by ethnic and religious strife and who are attracted to various strains of noxious neo-pagan and hate-filled thought.

The Finite Participates in the Infinite: The Early Christian Tradition that...

We are limited beings distinct from God, but our earthly nature becomes beautified when it participates in the infinite. Christ’s humanity was thought to make it possible for every person to share in the divine life without ceasing to be human.

Two Cheers for Two Popes

In short, we need to rely less on building rigid ideological superstructures and more on our guts, guts kept healthy by a diverse diet of conversation and friendship. We need to have more personal encounters and trust in the general “goodness” of people. In other words, we need to take the seriousness with which we treat this Left-Right stuff down a notch and lighten up!

Tropical Fruits of the Lower Midwest

The maypop shows, however, that localism need not mean confining oneself to an austere and moralistic diet. If I cannot grow bananas and mangoes in the Ozarks, I can nonetheless harvest maypops.

Footsteps on a Generational Housetop

It may be that only in coming face to face with a world where gifts are truly needed can children discover the Earth as authored by something—or someone—greater than their parents can buy.

Waiting, Seeing, and Receiving

Advent is a reminder that God has not forgotten—that He is faithful to His promises, that we're not left to our own devices, that he hears and knows.

Reading Reality (and Watching for Bric-à-Brac on Our Windowsill)

Christian monastic pioneers saw that books left on the windowsill are more likely to make an impression on those outside than on those within.

A Christmas Tree You Don’t Know Beans About

The locust tree is a rare symbol of Christmas and Easter as one.

What Is Your Vote?

I’m not asking what candidate you support. What I am asking you to consider is what does your vote constitute? This question was spurred by...

Last Rites for Local Parishes: On the Decline of Catholic Chicago

A church that prides itself on its universality—its catholicity—has served as a seedbed for hundreds of parishes divided along ethnic lines.