Joshua Whitfield
March 11, 2019
In his 1942 memoir, Austrian writer Stephan Zweig tells of hearing Hitler’s voice on the radio while riding a train in Texas, of hearing in real time about bombings and atrocities from all over the world, an experience which was new in human history and not altogether welcome. “Thanks to our new methods of spreading news […]
March 3, 2019
“What is most contrary to salvation is not sin but habit.” These are the words of Charles Péguy, instigator, poet, soldier, Catholic. And they’re words which, for me, come to mind as we begin our Lent again. He was talking about those habits which control us, shape us, which although small by themselves, together can define […]
February 28, 2019
My wife and I, we have four children, all younger than 7. Ours is not a quiet house. A house of screaming and a house of endless snot, it’s also a house of love, grown and multiplied every few years. In a house of little sleep, my hobby these days is simply to sit down; fellow […]
February 19, 2019
What passes for Christianity, what people see and mistake for Christianity, that’s what’s wrong with it. That Christianity — the phenomena, not the faith — has been eclipsed by parody; it’s why so many dismiss it. Because what’s laughable and incredible isn’t genuine Christianity, but rather a counterfeit too often misconstrued for the real thing.
January 25, 2019
It was the hat, you see, that smile, that smirk. Julie Irwin Zimmerman, writing for The Atlantic, called it a Rorschach test, which is the best way to think of that viral scene involving students from Covington Catholic High School and Nathan Phillips. Proving true what C.S. Lewis wrote: What you see and hear depends upon your point […]
January 5, 2025
Preaching, centuries ago, on this feast of the Epiphany, St. Augustine ended his sermon with a rhetorical flourish.
December 24, 2024
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the great Cistercian, said once that the Christmas homily should be brief—shorter than normal.
December 22, 2024
Martin Buber, the great Jewish thinker, said once that “The Shekinah is between beings.”[1] Now the word Shekinah is sometimes translated “glory,” yet it is not some ordinary glory but the glory of the presence of God, the dwelling of God; the idea is kind of synonymous with the “word” of God or even the “face” […]
December 15, 2024
Close readers of Luke will recall that the question we hear asked today, the question—“What then shall we do?”—which is found in Luke 3:10, is the same question found in Acts 2:37.
December 1, 2024
As the beginning of Advent, the lesson each year is to watch, the question is, Watch for what? To cut to the chase, to be as brief and simple as possible, the question the Church asks this first Sunday of Advent is always something like that.
November 4, 2024
They are the poets that help me—when I have no other way to make sense of it—to feel my way through death: to the love hidden underneath tears, when common words do not help. It’s not that they heal at all—what these poets say—instead, they help me feel. Which is I think the first thing we […]