When I heard of R.C. Sproul’s death, my first impulse was to pray for his family and–since I am no longer Protestant but Catholic–for him. My second was to turn to my mother and say, “R.C. Sproul died two days ago.” Death has a strange, self-assured touch. Everything stops in its tracks, but the fact of it won’t register. Not truly a shock, it is more a suspension, a cessation of movement in the vicinity

Advent Heavy lay the snow the last warm breath just lingering inside our gloves next to fatigue it slowed and chilled me and my brothers toying with a seam at winter’s hem until the cold was far too much we stumbled home and stood like living clouds of steam our thrown scarves garlands for the railing and the chairs Mother I even began to feel afraid when the last light topped its arc those slender

This piece is less of a precise exposition, and more of a contribution to several ongoing conversations on this subject with those I love; particularly my father, who along with my mother first demonstrated to me the priestly, prophetic, and kingly role of Christians. Our Eucharistic Lord This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King. It puts me in mind of His words to St. Faustina Kowalska, explaining to us what kind of king

All the Secrets You don’t believe me, look there, part the grass, he’s walking through the kitchen in his shirt you laugh he’ll hear you and come looking. He keeps (I saw it from a faded picture snagged at midnight on a full-waned moon a solitary awning’s bulb the best light going) a frog that talks, oh yes I mean it don’t you say I lied, I’ve heard it croak a choked horn’s wheeze that

Introduction Christian life flows forth from the nourishing Word of God. Each generation encounters the sacred text, and responds in love to the divine laws written therein. And yet, the interpretation of Scripture is a topic that oftentimes divides more than it unites. The complexity of the text dictates that we may not all think the same way; yet, in line with our mission to promote meaningful dialogue across Christian traditions, we asked our authors

Images of the Shroud I stay up late at night searching for high-resolution images of the Shroud of Turin weighing the evidence and different theories. I can see the blood on his arms, ringing round the bicep and shoulders, running like tattoos, the wound on the hand, and those on the feet, ribcage, and brow. They trace a body on the cloth, the relic of a crux connecting earth to heaven, there to issue blood

Purgatory and the Playboy: Remembering Hugh Hefner Two weeks ago today, Hugh Hefner died at the age of 91. Almost immediately, writers rallied to denounce (or acclaim) the fraudulent idea of his “legacy.” What he left behind him can be called a legacy only in the same sense as the aftermath of a disaster. My hope is that his life’s work, like that of the Marquis de Sade, will fade to the point that while

The Holy Names I overheard a man who burnt his fingers, blew a tire, tripped a wire in the undergrowth and called upon the worst things he could think to say: Jesus, Mary, Joseph! The holy ones spoke to my heart too, their names leapt up gently as benediction. How good, I praised, that you are with us, Holy Family! How good that you become the curse of many! How good that they are shorting

Mary, Mother of God, Mother of the Church Given that yesterday the Church celebrated the memorial of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I thought that this week instead of my usual poem I would share a prayer, a traditional litany in honor of her beautiful Name. As I prepared this piece, I couldn’t help thinking that much of the prayer’s language will be unfamiliar to my Protestant brothers and sisters. It

  The King of All Creation The Book of Tobit The demon Asmodeus swept the sky all ownership and prowess, casting through each curtain of wind, cresting toward the maiden’s bower. “I am the king of all creation, I am the high-rise towering over the tenements! I am the mighty Asmodeus, conqueror, seducer, deepest shadow of the strongest light, widower, crucible, biggest bubble in the soaphouse, bug of bugs!” Swifter than an accidental fart, he

I Want a Solution    for Charlottesville, VA I want a solution but my mind offers platitudes maybe they’re enough to seal the gap the whistling cold the difference between yesterday and today in Charlottesville where others carry thoughts like a sickness that kills them first swinging their fever in censers anointing their steps with ash walking by them I try to keep quiet and pass unseen my easy answers held out of sight like

Like So Many Things Through invisible fissures bones invested the jelly and were spooled around with veins that traced a floating scaffolding of fibers, twitching with electricity, suffused with untouched blood newly made for this alone. This new being is like a heron perched on the concrete box that catches the beach after the hurricane swept away the sand. How still he stands before he lifts into the heavy air, rolling his wings once and

Her Play Vroom-vroom! Pushing a toy bus she disturbs my thoughts’ quiet with her prattle. I’d have lain untroubled as a mule slipped from the halter, tugging up the roots of clover with their tangled clods hung unmeaning, broken up and shifting down my chin. I would have missed seeing the day intrude through the shutters, shining here and there between her shoulders and her golden hair, the light as clear as language when she

And then the crowd roars And then the crowd roars– but why are they roaring? What are they roaring for? When you repeat a word like roaring several times it starts to come undone inside your head. It turns inside out, or upside down and lurches side to side without explanation. Before you can speak or look, the whole thing’s over. Like conviction meaning proves a co-dependent thing. The shape of the sound the shape

Because of joy I am exposed 2 Samuel 6:16-23 When God has brought me home to Him by coming home to me, I will be unable to listen to you, even if you weep. I have to go and thank Him. God has come into the city of my soul; each breath is like an exile freed. The truth no longer grieves me. My laughter is like tambourines. I will continue to dance with swinging

the end of the cigarette i smoked a cigarette today and drank a glass of milk set on a log both i and the milk were beading sweat now and then i leaned the column of the cigarette against a flake of bark that used to generate the very life of this tree now a log i sat on indifferent to me in the yellow sunlight the cigarette was from a yellow pack with a

Soli Deo Gloria    John 6:56-58 Soli Deo God alone gloria glory untouchable yet the light Comes down to this particular place all gathered and acclaiming With one voice one eternal song one renewal of one Face All light creating here that City without darkness this Word The City’s light Himself the small white votive candles and the liturgy Our prayers another voice the single Word resounding as light Giving each new birth each grace

The stars all started going out You slowly exhaled. The wind crept, twisting through the sloping grass spanning away beneath miles of power lines. From your mouth, the smoke curled over its own shadows, dull blue on thick white under the moon. “What if the stars all started going out one by one–” I saw filaments crackling their last fits inside glass bulbs–“until they all were dark.” Another slow glow as you took another draw–the

Holy Week This week there is another, one more child lost within the darkness of my womb. How I have tried to care for them, and carry them, my life’s portion, delicate burdens, slowly forming crosses to bear–or prove unable to bear. As Mary watched her womb’s fruit, ripe in its own blood, fall on the road to Golgotha– once, twice, a third time, cords lashing around His crippled form, until it was impossible to

To Enter Gilead Judges 12:5-6 For the refugees of the Syrian crisis. My infant daughter doesn’t have a word for thirst. The words she knows, we make her say. We require what she has. But when she points, panicked with need, we relent. Things were different for Ephraim. The Jordan ford was watched– there was no deliberating. To enter Gilead was pass-fail. When they couldn’t say the shibboleth, they died for it. —Commentary— In the