Tolkien once wrote a letter on how men can be monogamous. The implication is that men are not naturally monogamous. Usually, when someone hears of a devoted Catholic man committing adultery, there are expressions of shock and disbelief. “Not John, who goes to adoration five times a day!” “Not Peter, who brought the Latin Mass … Read more
Like most men who survived their twenties, I was a regular consumer of pornography. Not occasionally, and not compulsively, but somewhere between the two extremes. It’s the white sugar of the internet — cheap, accessible, pervasive, and empty. Being Catholic didn’t help — at least not initially. I came into the Church at 18 in … Read more
In Plato’s famous dialogue on love, the Symposium, Socrates relates the “tale” he learned from his teacher Diotima of Mantineia. She tells him that love is caused by the beautiful, and that the ultimate goal of our love is absolute Beauty itself: He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and … Read more
The glory days of the Church calendar (pre-1955), once highlighted the commencement of the Octave Feast of the Nativity with consecutive celebrations of three martyrs of Christmas, exemplifying the three types of martyrdom: the red martyr Stephen, the white martyr John, and the infant martyrs (the Holy Innocents). The origin of this trio of celebrations … Read more
For some, a morning ritual consists of nothing more than jumping out of bed, full of energy and ready to go. However, those titans who can so easily start their mornings, tend to lose energy in the late afternoon or early evening. And then there are some of us who find it difficult to muster … Read more