What do we really know about the woman we call Mother of God and Mother of the Church, the first of all the saints, the model believer? What do contemporary Scripture studies, archaeological research and analysis of the literature of her time reveal to us about Mary? I invite the reader to reflect w
Not only did Fra Giovanni paint like an angel; he was, in his personal life, an angel himself. The friar’s “angelic” style and “rare and perfect talent,” Vasari informs us, were the result of a “simple and devout life.”
It is amazing how many people are trying to find problems where there aren’t any. The culprits are prejudice and ignorance. Of course, nobody likes to be called prejudiced or ignorant, especially if it may be true. The creation- versus-evolution controversy is loaded with confusion caused by t
In recent years, even at Christmastime, there has been little good news from the Holy Land, but on Nov. 19 Latin-rite Catholics in the Holy Land had reason to celebrate. That day they welcomed Bishop Fouad Twal, until recently bishop of Tunis, as coadjutor patriarch of Jerusalem. Bishop Twal, a Jord
Surprise Memorial
Many thanks to Robert Ellsberg for his scholarship and recent reflection, Five Years With Dorothy Day (11/21). This remarkable woman, arguably the greatest American Catholic of the 20th century, I include in religious education classes at our Catholic secondary
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently offering an exhibition of the work of Fra Angelico (1390/95-1455), one of the most extraordinary artists of the early Italian Renaissance period. His vibrantly hued, finely detailed images of saints, angels and the Holy Family conjure wonder and emanate pe
"When peaceful silence lay over all, and night had run half of her swift course, your all powerful word, O Lord, leaped down from heaven from the royal throne” (Wis 18:14-15) “...and Mary gave birth to a son, her first born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a ma