ALETEIA: 6 Reasons why all Christians (non-Catholics too!) should have a relationship with Mary
To put Protestants at ease right way: Catholics do not worship Mary. Period. We venerate her because as the Mother of Jesus, Christ came to us through her. God could have done it any way he wanted, and yet this was how he chose to come to us. It is only fitting then, that the Mother should help us return to her Son.
THE STREAM: Should Fearless Girls Worship the Golden Calf of Abortion?
The saga of the Charging Bull and the Fearless Girl is back in the news. It seems New York sculptor Alex Gardega objected to feminists’ appropriating the Wall Street icon. So he added something: a pug, relieving itself on the girl.
I couldn’t put my finger on it. But something about the Fearless Girl statue didn’t sit well with me. Social media fawned over the diminutive addition that bravely stood in front of Charging Bull in New York’s financial district. But the statue seemed like a cheap way to score political points. My cynicism grew the more I considered her underlying message.
NCR: Fatima's Urgent Message: Pick Up Your Rosary and Pray
With the 100-year-anniversary of Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima quickly approaching, many are wondering if it will be more than a simple anniversary, but that it might be connected to the world events we are watching unfold. The Fatima story is one that fascinates the mind and (hopefully) moves the heart, but there is much about it that remains unfinished.
NCR: Here is the Key to LIving the Marian Option
How can Christians best deal with post-Christian America?
Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option is a book-long answer to that question. Dreher’s take is that St. Benedict offers a model that Christians can adopt to preserve their faith and culture in a world vastly hostile to it.
Out of the Ashes by Anthony Esolen and Strangers in a Strange Land by Archbishop Charles Chaput propose other answers to the question of Christian living today. My own take The Marian Option: God’s Solution to a Civilization in Crisis, comes out in mid-May.
NCR: The Hidden Connection Between Mary and Divine Mercy
For many years I’ve marveled about the “coincidence” of three highly influential saints living in Krakow at roughly the same moment in history: St. Faustina Kowalska, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and Pope St. John Paul II. While working on my book, The Marian Option, it occurred to me that there does seem to be a missing link, however, between Sts. Faustina and Maximilian. What is the connection between Divine Mercy and Mary? I was intrigued by this seemingly missing piece and thought there might be something worth investigating. I had a hunch that there had to be a deeper link between Mercy and Mary somewhere in the mix.
ALETEIA: 5 timeless truths about the heart you’ll find in ‘Moana’
I had heard good things about Moana, I wasn’t quite sure what we would find wading into it. I was, however, very pleasantly surprised. An island chief-in-training, Moana is aware of a sense of mission. She is tasked with saving her civilization by returning a stolen “heart” to the goddess of life. Although a tale based upon the ancient myths of Polynesia, Moana does not stray far from timeless truths of the human heart that make for great storytelling and Catholic wisdom.
NCR: The Beauty of Women Will Save the World
Lovingly pouring ourselves out for others may not always be glamorous, but it is always beautiful.
Dante and Beatrice
There is a well-known Dostoevsky trope that says, “beauty will save the world.” The famous Russian is usually taken to mean the beauty found in the material arts. Music, architecture, and sculpture are rightfully being plumbed for their world-saving abilities, particularly how they lead a soul back to God. But there is one stone that has yet to be unturned when considering the role beauty plays in saving the world: women.
The desire to be beautiful is deeply embedded in a woman’s soul. Each year, American women spend roughly $11 billion on cosmetic surgery, $24 billion on skin care, $18 billion on makeup, $38 billion on hair care, $15 billion on perfume, and somewhere between $20-45 billion on weight loss. The average woman spends 17 years of her life on a diet. While we can scoff at all of this with Qoheleth and say, “Vanity of vanities!” (Ecc 1:2), perhaps there is something to this that goes deeper than vanity. What if God has put that desire into our hearts for a reason? For even the smallest girl will tell you she wants to be as beautiful as a princess. This isn’t just cultural conditioning, but something universal that sits squarely in the feminine heart.
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