Category: ANGELUS NEWS

  • THREE GREAT CALIFORNIA MEMOIRS AND A BLESSED ADVENT

    THREE GREAT CALIFORNIA MEMOIRS AND A BLESSED ADVENT

    Blessed Advent to all!

    In this week’s Angelus News column, I consider three great California memoirs: God’s Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine, by Victoria Sweet, MD; Dear Los Angeles: The City In Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018, edited by David Kipen: and Joan Didion’s Where I Was From.

    So many memoirs, so little time…I’ve already got the draft of a column called “Three MORE Great California Memoirs.”

    Meanwhile, I came across this essay from a book of Christmas readings that’s on my list to read and feature in 2026. “The Dangers of Advent,” by J.B. Phillips, the essay’s called, and the blurb runs: “No amount of familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should blind us to its quiet but explosive significance.” Check it out.

    I’m off to NYC December 22 for a week. This will be the second year in a row I’m on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for Christmas and I just may make it an annual ritual. Cannot wait to walk the frosty streets, see the lights, and mingle with the world’s hoi polloi as we await, whether we know/recognize it or not, the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

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  • JANE EYRE,A WRITING WORKSHOP, AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING

    JANE EYRE,A WRITING WORKSHOP, AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING

    This week’s Angelus News column is on one of the world’s most beloved novels: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. I read it last summer for the first time since late childhood and realized I’d missed a whole lot.

    As reported earlier this week, I’ll be giving a week-long Memoir Writing Workshop at St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, CA, July 6-10, 2026. More on this anon and would love to see you there.

    I’m off to the Central Coast next Tuesday with two kinds of home-made cookies and a surprise snack for my hosts! Happy Thanksiving to all.

  • THE FABULOUS ART OF PHILADELPHIA’S BARNES FOUNDATION, THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, AND RADIO TAISO

    THE FABULOUS ART OF PHILADELPHIA’S BARNES FOUNDATION, THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, AND RADIO TAISO

    In this week’s Angelus News column, I give my take on a recent visit to Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation, a world-class collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Modernist paintings.

    So overwhelming was the bounty that I ended up collapsed on a bench, gazing mutely for several minutes at a tiny Cézanne of a white plate, a bunch of grapes, and a single peach.

    In other news, I am reading The Intellectual Life by Fr. Antonin Sertillanges, OP, first published in 1921–who says I’m out of step with contemporary culture?–boning up on Rembrandt and van Gogh for my Jan. trip to Amsterdam, ascertained from my airbnb host there that I can do a laundry at her place and put it on a drying rack, booked a shuttle bus from Tucson to Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport for Dec 22 when I fly to NYC for Christmas, made a Walmart Superstore run for the Thanksgiving cookies and snacks I’ll bring to my friends in Santa Maria, CA, that week, watered the oleander out back, vacuumed the car, filled the birdfeeder for the finches, and on the advice of a friend from Maine just my age have started doing this Japanese exercise routine, only takes 3 or 4 minutes, called Radio Taiso.

    According to an article I read, the whole country performs these exercises every morning in synch and then they are all cheerful and limber and live to be 120.

    All together now!

  • AN ELIE WIESEL DOCUMENTARY, PHILADELPHIA GARDENS, AND SILENCE

    AN ELIE WIESEL DOCUMENTARY, PHILADELPHIA GARDENS, AND SILENCE

    This week’s Angelus News column is a reflection on a 2024 documentary, directed by Oren Rudavsky, called Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire.

    Plus the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters, art galore, and the glories of Philadelphia gardens over at Substack.

    And my take on Jane Brox’s Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives.

    If you’ve enjoyed my work for the last year or two, or 10, or 15, plase think about supporting it with a free or paid ($5/month) subscription at DESIRE LINES: BOOKS, CULTURE, ART.

  • THE LOUIS ARMSTRONG HOUSE MUSEUM, A TRIP TO PHILLY, AND A DAY IN THE LIFE

    THE LOUIS ARMSTRONG HOUSE MUSEUM, A TRIP TO PHILLY, AND A DAY IN THE LIFE

    This week’s Angelus News column: A pilgrimage to the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens.

    “He was born poor, died rich, and never hurt anyone on the way,” eulogized Duke Ellington.

    I’m fascinated by the way we order our days. Ideally, one of mine includes a celebration of, and tending to, the spiritual, emotional mental and physical…

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  • EMIL KAPAUN, HEROIC P.O.W, AND A TRIP TO PHILADELPHIA

    EMIL KAPAUN, HEROIC P.O.W, AND A TRIP TO PHILADELPHIA

    Emil Kapaun (1916-1951), a Catholic priest and U.S. Army Chaplain from Kansas, exhibited heroic virtue as a POW during the Korean War. “Just for a moment,” one of his soldiers said, “he could turn a mud hut into a cathedral.”

    My weekly piece in Angelus News.

    Head over to Substack for a piece called Pilgrim Feet and a reflection on my love of walking.

    Autumn fever is upon me and I am headed near the end of the month to Philadelphia, there to spend a week with a friend and EXPLORE.

    “When Jesus takes you into himself to give you to souls, wherever you go means a life of isolation. We find that apparent contradiction in Christ, a hidden, contemplative soul who ended up in giving himself to men, allowing himself to be consumed by them.”

    —Charles de Foucauld, desert hermit (1858-1916)

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  • THINKING AS GOD DOES, NOT AS MAN DOES

    THINKING AS GOD DOES, NOT AS MAN DOES

    This week’s Angelus column is about Mother Antonia Brenner (1926-2013), a Beverly Hills wife, mother and socialite who visited Tijuana’s notorious maximum security prison, chucked it all, moved into her own cell, and ministered to the prisoners for decades. In all that time, she summed up, “I’ve never had a moment of depression.”

    If you’re anything like me, every once in a while, from out of nowhere, come the thoughts: What’s it all for? Have I ever really offered anything, sacrificed anything, meant anything? Is what I do just busy work, performed robotically simply so I don’t lose my mind?

    Maybe fall more than any other season tends to bring such musings on.

    Anyway, the other day I realized: You are thinking as man does, not as God does (Viz. Mt. 16:23, Mark 8:33).

    Only humans, with our egos and desire to “make a mark,” are remotely concerned with such things. Look at God, who creates gazilions of flowers, trees, clouds, and people, none of which/whom are ever really seen or cherished or appreciated. I’m sure He appreciates all efforts on our own part to pitch in, help carry the load, persevere.

    SUNSET IN TUCSON

  • WEEKLY NEWSLETTER: ROMANI GUARDINI’S “THE LORD’S PRAYER,” CONNEMARA, TRAGIC YOUNG DEATHS

    WEEKLY NEWSLETTER: ROMANI GUARDINI’S “THE LORD’S PRAYER,” CONNEMARA, TRAGIC YOUNG DEATHS

    God’s will, says Guardini, is what “by his decree should be accomplished in the world” — and that depends, absolutely, on our cooperation and consent to his grace. Read all about it in this week’s Angelus News.

    Next Thursday I fly out to Dublin. Why? To host a MEMOIR WRITING WORKSHOP at Kylemore Abbey!

    We’ve already calendared out next year for September 6-12, 2026, so put that in the hopper.

    We had a death in the family this week, my 23-year-old grand-niece back in New Hampshire: car accident. Then–the chlldren in Minneapolis.

    Makes you kind of want to hunker down.

    Visit and subscribe to my Substack at DESIRE LINES: BOOKS, CULTURE, ART, for at least twice-weekly posts.

  • WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 22, 2025: ONE SPOT REMAINING IN IRELAND WRITING WORKSHOP

    WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 22, 2025: ONE SPOT REMAINING IN IRELAND WRITING WORKSHOP

    MEMOIR WRITING WORKSHOP! IN CONNEMARA! COMING UP! NAB THAT LAST SPOT…

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    THIS WEEK’S ANGELUS COLUMN

    Boston native Nicole Treska has written a memoir to read with an ache in the throat: “Wonderland” (Simon & Schuster, $27.99).

    “How do you turn the province of drunks, sailors, and hookers into a dream of bright escape?” she asks in the opening paragraph. “You build Wonderland, one of America’s first amusement parks, located on the water right outside of Boston. Wonderland only operated for a few bright seasons, from 1906 to 1910, but its legacy shines on.”

    It’s one of the best books I’ve read in ages–I even wrote Nicole a fan letter–and if you love memoir, and especially if you grew up in New England, I urge you to buy and read it.

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  • WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 15, 2025: OVERWHELMED WOMEN, THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BVM, AND A MEMOIR WRITING WORKSHOP

    WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 15, 2025: OVERWHELMED WOMEN, THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BVM, AND A MEMOIR WRITING WORKSHOP

    This week’s Angelus News column is on a book called The Most Overwhelmed Women of the Bible by Mary DeMuth. Granted, they didn’t have e-mail and cell phones, BUT.

    Today of course is a beautiful Solemnity and a Holy Day of Obligation: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary body and soul into heaven. A few years ago, I went to a Mass at a women’s retreat place and the “progressive” priest man-splained the whole homily about how of course we women didn’t believe such nonsense, and all but apologized on behalf of the Church for having to celebrate the feast. I can’t bear playng “the woman card,” but give me a break–he didn’t even get how insufferably obnoxious it was to be forced to sit and listen to a guy tell me what I was supposed to believe and feel…especially because I was in fact trembling with joy at the thought of Our Lady’s special way of being welcomed into Paradise, there to be crowned QUEEN OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.

    I felt exactly like the hungering and thirsting send-off crowd in Titian’s painting–

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  • WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 8, 2025: AGAINST EASE, SUMMER IN THE DESERT, AND IRELAND AHEAD

    WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 8, 2025: AGAINST EASE, SUMMER IN THE DESERT, AND IRELAND AHEAD

    This week’s Angelus News column is called “Against Ease” (or was, before they changed the title to “How Much Failure and Suffering Must One Endure for a Good Life”).

    Anyway, as Flannery O’Connor observed: “We are all rather blessed in our deprivations if we allow ourselves to be.”

    Here in the Sonoran Desert, the high yesterday was 113. The whole last two weeks it’s been well above 100 every day. The effect is kind of like an extended snow day back East. You’re excused from just about all activity. Noon Mass is fun cause the thermometer in the car will say like 121 degrees when you come out afterwards and till the A/C kicks in you have to handle the steering wheel like a hot potato.

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  • WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 25, 2025: THE CHILDLIKE HEART, A ROSE GARDEN, AND BE PREPARED TO WITNESS TO YOUR HOPE!

    WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 25, 2025: THE CHILDLIKE HEART, A ROSE GARDEN, AND BE PREPARED TO WITNESS TO YOUR HOPE!

    This week’s Angelus News column is about a chance encounter with a fellow random, gloriously joyful loner, in a rose garden, on the 4th of July. It’s also a paean to LA, and a tribute to the child-like heart.

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  • WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 18, 2025: THE PARADOX OF BEAUTY AND THE POVERTY OF PRAYER

    WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 18, 2025: THE PARADOX OF BEAUTY AND THE POVERTY OF PRAYER

    This week’s Angelus News column is a reflection on The Paradox of Beauty.

    I am off to St. Andrew’s Abbey next week for a private retreat. Very much looking forward.

    And a message from your sponsor!

  • WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 11, 2025: OUR FATHER WHO ART IN AN IRON LUNG

    WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 11, 2025: OUR FATHER WHO ART IN AN IRON LUNG

    This week’s arts and culture column is a review of a memoir (his first book, at 75!) by my college friend Dougie Dodd.

    Our Father Who Art in an Iron Lung is a memoir about growing up with a father who was stricken with polio in his early 30s and lived 21 more years.

    I visited the Norton Simon Museum today, home of Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree,” Zurburán’s “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose,” about which the Pultizer Prize- winning food critic Jonathan Gold once wrote an iconic essay, and Cézanne’s “Tulips in a Vase.”

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