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 […]
June 2, 2024
Jesus Christ, risen and ascended: by the gift of the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost, the gift of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit who is God—a Trinity—he comes to us today, our Lord, every day, as food, as silent food and drink. Into a world often too busy to notice, before hearts which […]
May 25, 2024
I have a thing for artists—poets, painters, people like that.
May 19, 2024
I’m sure I’ve told this story before, about an old priest from Cilicia in southern Anatolia. It was centuries ago.
May 12, 2024
A mother was here earlier today. I stood with her, there in front of the altar.
April 27, 2024
We must be quite careful how we interpret these words of Jesus. John’s gospel is in every syllable a mystical text, and so one must take care not to read these words superficially or to misread them entirely.
April 21, 2024
You’ve often heard me say how our experience of Christianity, of the Church, is so very different from the Church of the past, from the Christianities of long ago.