Christian News

“Ain’t nobody got no sickdays?” the bus driver chuckled as he opened the door, welcoming a dozen commuters who stood freezing in the pre-dawn dark. It was the Third Sunday of Advent, and the Northeast was in the embrace of the season’s first snowpocalypse. But snow or no snow, I had to get to St. Patrick’s Cathedral to cover Mass, so off I went.

During my graduate studies, I took a long tour through modern and post-modern social philosophy. This included thinkers such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Descartes, Bacon, Rousseau, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Marx, among others. I did this for the sake of gaining a better handle on the historical backdrop of Catholic social teaching, particularly the contributions of Pope Leo XIII...

There is a specific virtue of running a household well. For me, discovering it was one of the great fruits of studying ancient and medieval thinking. According to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, “domestic prudence” arranges everything in one’s home life toward the true happiness of its members. This can really help us in thinking about how to celebrate Christmas. A key feature of the great virtue of prudence is how it is different from any other know-how, or practical knowledge.

Picture a football stadium full of 80,000 people. Research indicates that you will influence that many people during the course of your lifetime (even if you don't have your own YouTube channel). But who is in your stadium? And what does it sound like in there? Are people cheering for the ways you positively affected them? Are they booing for all the terrible things you did? Or are they silent because you were on your phone...

In the medieval church, folk piety was rich in the theatrical and festive observation of Christ’s nativity. We see and hear a faint echo of it down to our own times in Christmas carols, pageants, living creches, and even quasi-religious pop entertainment like A Charlie Brown Christmas. Some tend to downplay the importance of the Christmas season in comparison to Lent and Easter in the early church, but that’s just not true...