Reading in Exile

This past weekend I attended a silent retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, led by a priest and a brother from the order Miles Christi . It was an extraordinary experience (though, not having been on a retreat for 11 years, I have little to compare it to), and I strongly encourage all of you to go on a retreat like this, if you have the opportunity. You can see when and where the Miles Christi priests are preaching these retreats all over the country here . I'm very grateful to my wife and my cousin who each recommended that I go on this retreat. I hope that it has made a real difference in my life of prayer and seeking virtue. I wanted to share some thoughts after this retreat. The Spiritual Exercises are a series of meditations based around the life of Our Lord. But their aim, at least as they were preached this last weekend, is to evoke acts and affections of repentance and resolution to reform one's life. Too often I, at least, think about re...

I've been reading Alice Von Hildebrand's biography of her husband Dietrich . In December 1933, after he had fled from Germany and was living in Vienna, Dietrich Von Hildebrand gave a number of talks in Belgium and France, some of them explicitly in opposition to National Socialism. While in Belgium, he visited Zita, the empress of Austria and Hungary who had been deposed after the fall of the Empire at the end of World War One. Dietrich at the time was working closely with Englebert Dollfuss , the Chancellor of Austria, and one who was trying hard to implement the Catholic social teaching and corporatist political vision of Pope Pius XI on a national scale, as well as oppose Nazism and Communism. The situation is instructive for conservatives today: [Zita] favored Dollfuss' political vision, but as an archmonarchist and a member of the deposed Habsburg dynasty, she could no share her visitor's enthusiasm for his leadership. It was a strange situation for Dietrich von ...

My wife and I are embarked on a project to watch all of Shakespeare's plays, in the fine productions put out in the 1980's by the BBC . We just finished the three parts of Henry VI , which I have seen before, but which certainly bear many re-watchings (and re-readings.) I am always struck by the depiction of Joan of Arc in Henry VI Part One : not the visionary and saint of our now-familiar Catholic tradition, but a lascivious, power-hungry woman who calls on demons to come to her aid, who is willing to sacrifice herself to them for her country: Cannot my body nor blood-sacrifice Entreat you to your wonted furtherance? Then take my soul, my body, soul and all, Before that England give the French the foil. (Act 5, Scene 3) This is, of course, what one should expect from an English depiction of the saint. The fact that Shakespeare is writing in Protestant England makes no difference here; had Shakespeare been writing in more Catholic times, surely his depiction of Joan woul...

I have finally completed David Foster Wallace's magnificent novel Infinite Jest . It took me eight months, but I read many other novels and other books during that time as well. It's a book worth taking slowly. There's a great deal that could be said about it, but for now I'll just say a little. Much has been written on the themes of the book: addiction in general, America's addiction to entertainment in general, the conflict between the freedom of pure license and obedience to a higher authority, how playing high-level competitive sport both shelters us from the horror of the freedom of pure license and also is a horror and an addiction in itself, the spiritual depth of twelve-step programs, the need to overcome an ironic and cynical stance toward the world in favor of a heartfelt, even naive, sincerity, etc. Much has been written on the form of the novel: its cyclic structure, its encyclopedic accounts of tennis and drugs and Alcoholics Anon...

Over the last few months, I've begun praying from the Divine Office (in the form promulgated in 1911 by St. Pius X), trying to pray a few hours each day. There are many things to recommend this practice, but one little joy is the praying of the Martyrology at the hour of Prime. (I know one can pray the Martyrology in the context of the new Liturgy of the Hours , but it was wonderful to find it directly incorporated into the liturgy in the Office ; I appreciate being made to do good things.) After the hymn, psalms, Scripture passage, responsory, and some prayers, one reads the Martyrology for the next day, thereby getting ready for those saints that one will honor on the morrow. The Martyrology lists all of the saints honored by the Church for a given day--not only those on the universal calendar whose feasts are celebrated at Mass, but all of them, which is quite a few! To pray the Martyrology is to feel oneself surrounded by that "great cloud of witnesses", and to hon...

On a recent road trip with my family, we listened to The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle . What a delightful, indeed hilarious, set of adventures, of Robin Hood and his Merry Men living their merry life in the greenwood! That is the chief value of the book, and should be enough to convince you to read it (with your children, if you've got some). But the book raised another point for me as well: that to be merry is a virtue, and one that is necessary for a fulfilling political life--you know, the sort that we don't seem able to have nowadays. In Pyle's telling, Robin Hood and his Merry Men steal only from those who have extorted money from others, such as a "baron or a squire, or a fat abbot or bishop." But when they are going to take from one of these authorities their ill-gotten gain, they first bring him to their home in Sherwood Forest, and give them a mighty feast, and perform various sports for their "guest", jesting all the while. ...

This question gets tackled frequently by various Catholic thinkers, bloggers, and apologists, and generally the answer is an unqualified "no". Indeed, frequently philosophically-inclined Catholics (and other Christians) express anger at those who say things like "now God has another little angel" in the context of a child's funeral. A conversation I had yesterday at a philosophy conference led me to mull this question over a bit, and my answer to this question is a qualified "yes". For this reason too, I don't think that people who say these things about the dead being angels should be corrected. Part of this issue is the question of what is meant by 'angel'. If by 'angel' one means a person who is necessarily immaterial--that is, a person who cannot have or be a body--then of course it is impossible for a human person to be an angel. You have or are (again, it depends on what you mean by 'have' and 'are' which is ...

I'm never quite sure if the problem of evil is really a problem at all. The problem, of course, is that there is evil (or, for a more precisely posed problem, meaningless or unredeemed or pointless evil), but if there were a God as He has been classically understood (as all good, all powerful, all knowing, perfectly loving) then He would want to and be able to prevent evil, and so there should be no evil. Since there is evil, then by that fact we can know that there is no God. Evil is variously understood by different proponents of the problem--most often as suffering (or, better, meaningless suffering) or as any privation (any lack of something that ought to exist). There are certainly more sophisticated versions of the problem, such as the one posed by Ivan Karamazov in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov . (Yes, that link leads to the Pevear and Volokhosky translation, and I defy anyone who asserts falsely that the Garnett translation is better.) On these more sophisticat...

Today the Roman Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ (as well as the Octave Day of St. John the Baptist). In praying Matins this morning, I was struck by two lines in the hymn ( Salvete Christi vulnera ): Suique Jesus immemor, Sibi nil reservat sanguinis. And Jesus, not remembering Himself , holds back none of His blood. What a mysterious power is the human memory! To remember is to intend, to re-live something that now no longer exists, to make it intentionally present once again--yet not as it originally was, but strained through the (often distorting) filter of one's life, one's prejudices good and bad, one's temperament, one's fullness or lack of attention, one's imagination But also to remember is to unify one's life, the many disparate strands of one's consciousness, in a single recollected life, centered around some good. But again to remember is to attend to something--perhaps wrongly, to hold back what...

Two films that my wife and I have recently watched have led me to reflect on the notion of Nihilism (you know, "these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of.") A few weeks ago, we watched Francois Truffaut's four Antoine Doinel films ( The 400 Blows, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board , and Love on the Run ), and last night we watched Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo . (If you know Whit Stilman's work, Stolen Kisses is the film that the Cathar character--another nihilist--makes his girlfriend watch in Damsels in Distress . I think it's well worth watching, but I'm not going to talk about that film here.) As one does, I mull over the much-vaunted eclipse of meaning in the modern world now and again. At times, I am overwhelmed with the apparent meaninglessness and valuelessness of the world; at times, I am struck by the deep and abiding significance and value of things. I've learned to take both experiences seriously. Both of them say...

On my family's road trips, we listen to audio books, to pass the time, and to amuse my wife and I and our children. We've taken a few trips in the last few weeks, and on them we listened to Little Women by Louisa May Alcott , and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson . Both of these books were among my favorites when I was a boy, and it's a pleasure now to share them with my children. When I read a book, I'm always sensitive to how it is trying to form me, especially how it's trying to form my worldview and my morals. I know that literature is not chiefly meant to be didactic (indeed, extremely didactic literature is boring) or like a work of philosophy, but is meant to be a thing of beauty. Nevertheless, one of the great extrinsic effects of literature is that it teaches us, it forms us, preferably without our even noticing. Human beings are called to greatness. My heart resonates before those books that show me this greatness. There is a place for books tha...