Can we separate an artist from their art? A scholar from their scholarship? Can we appreciate a wonderful book written by a terrible person? These are some of the deeply painful questions we ask today, especially in the age of #MeToo and cancel culture, and the seemingly never-ending revelations of
Setting the Scene: Plague as Context and Text Julian of Norwich (1342-1429) is one of those remarkable medieval women mystics like Hildegaard of Bingen (1095-1179), Hadewijch of Antwerp (thirteenth century), Marguerite Porete (1250-1310), Angela of Foligno (1248-1309), and Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380), all instructors in the mystical life, speaking of and
What follows is about Catholic evangelization, motherhood, the trauma of worldwide pandemics, and the lessons about each that Louisa May Alcott’s beloved nineteenth-century children’s novel Little Women (1868-69) can offer us today. But it starts inside my house, January 2022, in small-town Texas, when my six-year-old daughter stands before me
Shutterstock By Thomas Lambrecht There is a very old saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” It seems that is the case regarding the vaccine initiative promoted by the Renewal and Reform Coalition. Led by the Wesleyan Covenant Association, Good News, the Confessing Movement, and UMAction have committed a total of
Today’s daf addresses the question of whether buying and selling is allowed on hol hamoed. Here’s the first mishnah: One may not purchase houses, slaves and cattle (on the intermediate days of a festival) except for the needs of the festival, or for the needs of the seller who does
Americans struggle to understand the nature of Catholicism. In the U.S. context, religion is often understood as a strictly private affair. On Sundays, we go to church (or at least we once did, before many people stopped going to church at all). Such attendance, of course, is an optional dimension of
When preparing a homily on today’s reading (1 Cor. 12:12-31) from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, it is tempting to focus on the spiritual gifts due to their popularity in some Christian circles. But if we do, we will be missing an important idea that Paul develops in today’
Photo: Shutterstock. By Maggie Ulmer – People come to faith in all kinds of ways. God will use anything and everything if it permits him access to the human heart. I know of a young man raised in a Christian family who adopted the moral and ethical frameworks of Christianity,