April 22, 2019
It is hard to describe the loss of Notre Dame. When the poet Rainer Maria Rilke lived in Paris, each evening on his way home, he stopped as he crossed the Siene on the Île de la Cité to watch the sun set over Notre Dame. The darkening ancient towers silent against the new, awakening, electric […]
April 22, 2019
In the Seventh Circle of Hell, in Dante’s Inferno, in the circle of violence, is a rockslide, rubble as from an earthquake. It wasn’t always ruinous like this, this part of hell. It’s new, Virgil tells Dante; it wasn’t there the last time he came through. Earlier, Virgil had talked about it, the moment hell shook. […]
April 10, 2019
My name’s Josh…Fr. Josh. And I’m a priest, a preacher. I talk and write a lot. I’ve built a website, this one. My hope is that it’ll help me share, all in one place, cool and helpful things: homilies, reflections, talks, articles I’ve written, and so on. But also, more broadly, I want it to be […]
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 […]