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Monastery Run bubbles up from a spring by some trees in western Pennsylvania and meanders through woods and fields northeast to the Loyalhanna Creek, itself a tributary of a tributary of the Allegheny River. It gets its name from flowing for much of its length past a Benedictine monastery. Strolling along that stream, a modern monk [...]
Monday of Holy Week the reading at Mid-day Prayer at our Benedictine monastery happened to be from Lamentations 1. “How lonely sits the city,” the young monk read, “that was full of people . . . The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the appointed feasts.” A monastery that runs a college and a [...]
I love people. I watch, I listen, I ask questions. Today though, I must speak. I’ve been saddened to see so many Christians, especially Catholics, respond to this current upheaval in tones of fear. I would understand if they were afraid for the things that will definitely hurt them and their friends: a crushed economy, loss [...]
We used to have a priest in our parish who habitually responded to any parishioner’s troubles or joys with the question: “Where is God in all this?” The effect of the question was an immediately altered perspective. It vaporized subjectivity, and from that changed vantage point, it called for an answer to the question itself. Some [...]
While this is not a popular subject, it may be an appropriate one for the season of sobriety. Not long ago, I made a will, an advance directive, a medical power of attorney, and a financial power of attorney. Since I have no family, I asked a deacon and trusted friend to be in charge of [...]
Someone with whom I've been corresponding, a Catholic poet, sent me the link to a review of Divining Divinity, my one volume of verse. I could not recall ever having seen this review, which was published twelve years ago in Dappled Things. As it struck me freshly as something I was reading for the first time, I thought [...]
American Literature in the Twentieth Century The latest issue of the St. Austin Review is winging its way to subscribers. This is what they will enjoy: Dana Gioia admires “John Allen Wyeth: Soldier Poet”. Kevin O’Brien engages sardonically with T. S. Eliot’s letters and love life: “P.S. I Love You (Not)”. “Mr. Blue, Meet Your Nemesis.” Stephen Mirarchi [...]
Every woman is a mother. It is not necessary to give birth to be a mother, nor is it necessary to adopt or foster children to be a mother. If you’re born female, you’re born a mother, and you’re going to mother someone or something. You have no choice in the matter—It’s like breathing. There are [...]