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The Most Revolutionary Philosopher Since Plato?
At the core of Charles Péguy’s recently translated Notes on Bergson and Descartes: Philosophy, Christianity, and Modernity in Contestation is the view that Bergsonian philosophy represents a revolutionary moment in the history of French and so of Western culture—since for Péguy the two virtually coincided, in both directions. As such, it is for him on a par with the thinking of Plato, who proposed...
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Reassessing the Terrifying Modernist Religion of Rilke’s Elegies
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic Orders? And even if one were to suddenly take me to its heart, I would vanish into its stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear, and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains to destroy us. Every Angel is terror. And...
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Self-Centeredness Isn’t Narcissism’s Central Problem
Ovid’s Metamorphoses tells the strange myth of Narcissus—the boy who fell in love with himself. After spurning the love of the nymph Echo, whose speech can be only the repetition of what she has heard, the beautiful youth wanders, seeking solitude, and finds himself. However, a seer prophesied that Narcissus would live a long life only “if he does not discover himself.” He fatefully...
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What Does Belief in the Resurrection Look Like?
I believe all kinds of things: I believe E = mc2 (though I do not understand it); I believe warm weather will finally come to South Bend (eventually); I believed my GPS yesterday as it brought me to this doorstep; and so forth. But surely different kinds of truths call for different kinds of belief. The object requires something of the subject. Something different...
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Good Friday’s Silence Speaks
Silence speaks. On a first date, long periods of silence, say, “This is not going well. Why is this human being so painfully boring?” On a hike through a gorgeous mountain pass, silence bespeaks wonder at the created universe. At a funeral, silence signifies the pain of losing one we have loved so deeply. At a wedding, it testifies to the joy of nuptial...
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Pilate’s Question in a Post-Truth Context
“What is truth?” (Jn 18:36-38). Pontius Pilate posed this question to Jesus, and it is one that our post-truth world continues to ask. Given the demise of classical metaphysics, those who do not believe in God often do not believe in objective truth either. If objective moral norms cannot be discerned either from reality, or from a God who has revealed himself to humanity,...
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Can Christianity Stop at Good Friday?
In a letter to Father Couturier written one year before her death, Simone Weil confessed that “if the Gospel omitted all mention of Christ’s resurrection, faith would be easier for me. The Cross by itself suffices me.”[1] This confession should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Weil’s life or thought. Few things stand out so prominently in Weil’s late writings, after all,...
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The Notre-Dame Cathedral Fire Isn’t a Sign
Catholics love churches. Even when our architecture is less than excellent—this includes churches that also seem to look rather traditional—we nonetheless love them. We love them because in these places our babies were baptized; we married our spouses; we celebrated the Eucharist week after week, day after day, offering that sacrifice of praise that offers to humanity the hope that divine love alone saves....
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Remedies for American Catholic Polarization
Those hoping for a quick fix to the problem of Catholic polarization are sadly out of luck. Reducing Catholic polarization will almost certainly require reducing overall political polarization in the country, a difficult challenge. At the same time, the Church can and should try to convince more American Catholics to embrace Catholic ideals and support the countercultural approach of Catholic Social Teaching. This will,...
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On the Particular Grace of Palm Branches
“See the palm trees? They tell you anything’s possible. You can be anything, do anything. Start over.” So mutters Terrence Malick’s wayward young pilgrim near the start of his Lenten meditation Knight of Cups (2016). The voiceover accompanies a sequence of restless days and nights in Los Angeles: our Augustinian wanderer stalks empty studio lots, paces his sparsely furnished apartment, frolics through unnamed hotel...