Let's Explore What Others Ignore
The 1937 novel Descent into Hell, by Charles Williams, has a magnificent title, but was torture to read. I would describe the writer’s narrative style as relentlessly choppy: it is loaded with long, complex sentences riddled with abrupt and awkwardly placed…
It’s been 20 years since the film was released, but only now I read The Theology of The Passion of the Christ, by Monica Migliorino Miller. Subtitled, “A serious, scene by scene, in-depth theological study of the Mel Gibson film…
Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from Saint Thomas Aquinas, by Peter Kreeft Over the years I took a couple stabs at reading St. Thomas Aquinas. The first time I tried reading parts of Summa Theologiae directly, and got nowhere; I didn’t…
Charles de Foulcauld, Writings Selected with an Introduction by Robert Ellsberg. Charles De Foucauld (1858-1916) was born into a French aristocratic family. As a student he was affable, agnostic, lazy, pudgy, and gluttonous. He surprised everyone with his success as…
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a unique literary figure in the 20th century — perhaps so over a much longer span of time. A young man of letters living in New York City with a promising future as a poet and…