“But now,” declared Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles, “we have to prove the connection between the man and the beast.” Holmes referred, of course, to connecting a hound and a man, but his statement also sums up a general human fascination with finding mythical beings. In particular, humans have a yearning to find [...]
In the last chapter of The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien described Bilbo Baggins returning home to the Shire after an absence of more than a year, only to find he had arrived in time to see his possessions being sold at auction because he had been presumed dead. Bilbo buys back most of his property, [...]
In 1925 silent film star Buster Keaton, his wife, and their two sons moved into a new house just off Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California. Dubbed the Italian Villa, it sat on three and a half acres, and for Keaton’s wife, glamorous Natalie Talmadge, it was an ideal setting for lavish Hollywood parties. For Keaton [...]
Born 110 years ago today, Father Patrick Peyton, C. S. C., (1909-1992) went from a small farm in County Mayo, Ireland, to New York and Hollywood and world-wide recognition as “The Rosary Priest.” Through vast outdoor rallies, as well as radio, film, and television, Peyton promoted the practice of family prayer, especially urging Catholic families to [...]
In The Honorary Consul (1973), Graham Greene has one of his characters observe, “There were no detective stories in the age of faith. . . . God used to be the only detective when people believed in Him. He was law. He was order. He was good. . . . It was He who pursued the [...]
With renewed debate over who should fill a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court, a letter to the editor in an east coast newspaper stands out. Written by a Wall Street lawyer who was also an Army officer, it makes some excellent points. First, he reminds us what role judges play in a free society. [...]
It was at an Open Day at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, and as often happens with such jolly events, I had soon reached my limit of fun. A glance at my wristwatch confirmed my sense that I had sufficiently mixed and mingled, and so, adjusting my collar, I drifted towards the door of [...]
R. Lee Ermey, who has died at age 74, was a national treasure. He gained undying fame as U. S. Marine Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Stanley Kubrick’s film, Full Metal Jacket (1987). Nine years later, Alan Bennett watched the movie and wrote in his diary, later published in Untold Stories (2005), “It’s remarkable chiefly for the [...]
In the 1973 Disney cartoon film Robin Hood, King John is depicted as a lion surrounded by sacks of gold coins. Those money bags represent the king’s excessive taxation of his people, an unjust burden Robin Hood seeks to redress. In historical reality, King John is associated with the special coins known as Maundy Money, their [...]
The Gospel for the Fifth Sunday of Lent in Cycle B is according to Saint John (12:20-33), and it contains sayings by Jesus that preachers from the days of the Church Fathers until the present have found important for their homilies. There is Jesus saying that unless a grain of wheat dies in the soil, it [...]
