Wine, Romanesque architecture, and the monastic life, all reached their high point in the Middle Ages, tucked away in the province of Burgundy. You may not have heard of Cluny, but, from its humble founding in 910, it quickly constructed Read more…
Victor Hugo begins The Hunchback of Notre Dame, amazingly, by discussing a fire! Not any fire, but one that destroyed a beautiful and historical Gothic building. The story opens in the Grand Hall of Paris’ Royal Palace on the 6th Read more…
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), an Oxford convert mentored by St. John Henry Newman, stands among the greatest Catholic poets in the English language. After teaching at Newman’s oratory in Birmingham, Hopkins entered the Jesuits and, after numerous teaching positions in Read more…
My family spent Christmas back in my hometown, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Some of us took a pilgrimage of sorts to visit ancient and medieval art in New York City and Yale University’s Art Gallery in New Haven. Connecticut may seem an Read more…
Beer has a long connection to saints and holy figures. In The Beer Option, I discuss the beer miracles of St. Brigid of Kildare, St. Columban, and St. Arnold, St. Hildegard’s description of beer’s medicinal qualities, and St. Conrad of Read more…
This website focuses on rebuilding Catholic culture through art, festivity, education, Catholic history and traditions, and a life shaped by prayer. St. Martin of Tours (c.316-97) can be considered one of the original builders of Catholic culture. Thanks to Sulpitius Read more…
Halloween has become a national spectacle that ranges from cute to the macabre. In a culture that tries to forget death in daily life, it breaks forth dramatically and briefly each year, though in a way that trivializes it. Through Read more…
This is the last of my posts reflecting on the Beauty of Faith Pilgrimage to Ireland. As author of The Beer Option, which presents the Catholic way to drink as rooted in feasting, fasting, and friendship, I kept my eyes Read more…
Newman almost died as a young man, still an Anglican, during travels in Sicily. While in recovery he had his first real encounters with Catholics and the Mass. When he was well enough to return to England, he resolved that Read more…
The early Middle Ages rightly can be called the Age of the Monks and the title fits in Ireland even more than anywhere else. Ancient Ireland did not have cities and, with its tribal organization, the monastery served as a Read more…