heaven/hell

Remember the wife of Lot: Don’t Look Back

Remember the wife of Lot El Greco’s painting soberly adorns the cover of this month’s Magnificat. The artist placed the Lord’s left hand upon the globe of the earth, while Jesus’ right hand is raised in a calculated gesture. What kept me mesmerized by this painting, though, was the light. The sole source of light […]

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November’s the Month of the Dead-Why Should We Care?

Image Maura Harrison’s An Illustrated Comedy, Inferno Canto 1. In the middle of the journey of our life, November’s the month of the dead “I continue to think that we start from very different places on the question of death itself, what it is and what, if anything comes after it…I have trouble getting myself

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The World: The Great Yes and the Great No.

The world: The Great Yes and the Great No It’s a cryptic but arresting phrase, isn’t it: The great yes and the great no? I tripped on it while searching for something online a couple of weeks ago. After listening twice to a twelve-year-old homily of Bishop Barron’s called—you guessed it—The Great Yes and the

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Don't Blame the Devil:

Don’t Blame the Devil: What Blame Me?

Don’t blame the devil Soon after my conversion to Catholic Christianity, I discovered Saint Teresa of Avila. And I fell in love with her. Upon examining that statement, I realize it’s not hyperbole, but truth. Why? Among countless reasons, at this writing, it’s Saint Teresa’s admonition against blaming the devil for my weakness, laziness, and

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thinking about Capernaum

Thinking About Capernaum: Woe Onto You

Thinking about Capernaum Capernaum was Jesus’ town. The ruins pictured above were the great synagogue where Our Lord preached. It’s here where five of the twelve apostles lived: Peter, Andrew, John, James, and Matthew. Jesus’ town was the site of numerous miracles, among them the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead and the healing

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Words are not always a blessing

Words are not always a blessing Brother Jerome Leo (RIP )’s understated remark, “Words are not always a blessing,” refers to Saint Benedict’s sixth chapter, The Spirit of Silence. His comment evokes a wry smile of recognition. The Benedictine monk makes us pause at the truth in the fifteen-hundred-year-old words: Let us do what the

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The Struggle for Moral Survival

Photo: Signs and Wonders for Our Times The struggle for moral survival Karol Wojtyla’s {Saint Pope John Paul ll) early life was forged in a crucible. The phrase is no overstatement for the man born in 1920 Poland. By the age of twenty-one Karol was expert in the terror tactics of Nazi Germany. Upon “liberation”

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Lest We Give Offense: Give Twice What We Don’t Owe

Lest we give offense Last Monday’s Gospel passage in the Christian liturgy details the peculiar passage about the Capernaum Temple tax. The disciples are reeling from what Jesus has told them at the start of the Gospel: the Son of Man is to be “…handed over to men. And they will kill him and he

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