On Changing our Nature
There are things we never refer to because we presume they are settled once and for all. These tacit convictions cast their spell over everything else we think, say and
Love and Union – synonyms?
Some 40 years ago I spent two hours conversing in Kalady, India, with this monk of the Ramakrishna Mission. I had been sick for six weeks before this meeting, so
Coda to the Apocalypse
As vital as it is to our basic sanity to honor our senses’ report regarding the centrality of our Earth – both in our daily experience and as concerns our
On Binary Boors
C.S. Lewis once commented that a language was losing its heart when more and more adjectives became mere synonyms for “good” and “bad.” It is tiresomely well documented in digital
Angels and the City
According to Scripture, our first explicit encounter with the holy angels was after the expulsion from Paradise. At what should have been its welcoming gate, we found ourselves face-to-face with
So Much We Don’t See
Before talking about angels, we should be reminded that a consideration of invisible realities need hardly be arcane, or the subject-matter as “supernatural” as one might suspect. Reflect, for a
Melchizedek and the Magi
Two seemingly peripheral figures in the pages of Scripture look somewhat enigmatic when viewed separately, but begin to glow with meaning when considered together. I refer to the figure of
On the Meticulous Ritual of New Year
Even in my adopted country of Brazil, where a massively endemic unpunctuality rules the land, nearly every soul will be awake, seconds before midnight on Dec. 31, glaring at a
Feast of the Restless Family
Each time we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family, I am reminded of my trip to Egypt, several years ago, and the visits I paid to a few of
The Silent Night of Fecundity
Easter is dramatic, and the narrative from Palm Sunday to the Ascension is laden with more twists and turns and ups and downs than anything Aeschylus or even Shakespeare could
Leaving Troy (rev.)
The northwestern corner of “Asia Minor” (today’s Turkey) represented to the ancient world the westernmost cusp of the huge, heaving landmass of Asia, stretching behind it all the way to