“Intellectual activity nurtures an inner life,” sums up Hitz, “a human core that is a refuge from suffering as much as it is a resource for reflection for its own sake.
ANGELUS NEWS
LOVE ON THE STREETS OF LA FOR THE VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE
“For me, she represents my culture. She represents cultural and social pride, my upbringing.”
ALL THE BEAUTY IN THE WORLD: THE MEMOIR OF A MET MUSEUM GUARD
There’s a wonderful chapter, called “Days’ Work,” on the drawings of Michelangelo and the Gee’s Bend quilters from rural Alabama, specifically Loretta Pettway who, like Michelangelo, found her work almost unbearably burdensome and did not especially enjoy it. And made quilts that were almost preternaturally beautiful.
LOOK: HOW TO PAY ATTENTION IN A DISTRACTED WORLD
The beauty in such strange and singular little clubs, the delight in the face-to-face human encounter, the social aspect, the person-to-person sharing, the fun of the collective search: All this is lost on Madsbjerg.
THE CAPACITY FOR LITURGY
When I come across someone who is also hungry, searching, and soul-sick, and who also desperately wants to order his or her life to the highest possible plane, I need something way more solid than my own self-styled “spiritual” frolic.
SIR ALEC GUINNESS: CATHOLIC CONVERT
Guinness played a priest in another, lesser-known film, “The Prisoner” (1955).
Adapted from a play by Bridget Boland and directed by Peter Glenville, the film considers such contemporary issues as public shaming, the surveillance state, and anti-Church sentiment.
GEORGE SAUNDERS’ A SWIM IN A POND IN THE RAIN
“[Nineteenth-century Russian novelists] seemed to regard fiction not as something decorative but as a vital moral-ethical tool. They changed you when you read them, made the world seem to be telling a different, more interesting story, a story in which you might play a meaningful part, and in which you had responsibilities.”
THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN MUSEUM OF LOS ANGELES
Even after firmly establishing themselves geographically, economically, socially, and culturally, Italians in Los Angeles faced formidable obstacles.
A SILENT RETREAT AT ARDS FRANCISCAN FRIARY
It’s a lot to carry, being a pilgrim. Sometimes it’s all too much and I have to take to bed with a bag of candy and watch three Joan Crawford movies in a row.
THE GOD OF THE IMPOSSIBLE: ADORATION
“Silence in the desert, silence in the cave, silence in the Eucharist. No prayer is so difficult as the adoration of the Eucharist. One’s whole natural strength rebels against it.”
CREATIVE SUFFERING
The Russians have a notion that where the greatest evil is to be found, so is the greatest good.
HE WHO DANCES ON WOOD
“He Who Dances on Wood” is a luminous homage to making do with what’s at hand, to the vocation of art, and most particularly to the glorious Fred Nelson.
WHAT IT IS TO BE A WOMAN
To men who think they can become women, I want to say, you’re not strong enough.
ON ERIK VARDEN’S THE SHATTERING OF LONELINESS
“While de Beausobre was engulfed in Stalin’s terror,” Varden writes, “she encountered an old nun who assured her she must one day leave Russia and convey a message to ‘our brethren beyond the border.’