Churchlifejournal

It is an unbending law of the universe—as necessary as gravity, and as obdurate as diamond—that, the more real a thing becomes, the more it reflects a light not its own. Call it the Law of the Mirror. A mirror works to the effect that it captures light; a broken, clouded mirror produces a poor reflection. Thus the paradox: the more perfect the mirror, the better it signifies ...

Neuroscientists often claim to have privileged access to the reality of the human person, but they also tend to reduce that reality to material terms.[1] For example, one states that “self is ‘what [the brain] does.’”[2] Another argues, “So, who ar...

Is Scripture one Book or a collection of many books? If the Bible is one Book, then it has to have one subject, one unifying center. According to the New Testament, that one subject is Christ, who is foreseen, spoken of, and even active, in the many books of the Old Testament. Such is the argument offered by Olivier-Thomas Venard in a chapter titled “

Love that cannot be seen
does not obscure
—Jan Twardowski, Świat

Fr. Jan Twardowski (1915-2006) may not be known in the English-speaking world as well as other Polish poets such as Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska, or Karol Wojtyła. So far, only a couple of limited editions of his poems have appeared in English.

Being on the road is at once a universal and specifically American literary theme. On a road one is traveling somewhere, with purpose and without it. One arrives or does not. Good and bad things happen. Nothing untoward happens, or the unexpected happens. One’s burdens lighten or increase. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road depends on how the symbol concentrates human life, ...