By Caleb Haskell

It is true, some men turn to God in face of great suffering, but others resent Him (if He exists at all) for such an injustice. Man’s problem is oftentimes that he struggles to appreciate the good so much as he despises the bad. Hence, the positive end of mystery which we seldom wonder at.

By Makena Wisniewski

Couples partake in Love in a profound way, breathing the very breath of life back into the world as God first did. They are not passive bystanders. Instead, they dance vigorously on a spiral, secured by vows so that they will not fall, but vigorous nevertheless. Atop the spiral, the world must look up. As it does, it sees man, the only creature God willed for itself, with another, dancing to the rhythm of being.

The Enlightenment political project abandoned an idea of the teleology of the state present in Aristotle. While this is most evident in Hobbes' and Locke's works, it is also present in the American founding documents to a lesser extent.

Ultimately, in presenting an individualist view of human nature and a fear-based political order, Hobbes conceptualizes a commonwealth inhospitable to virtue, since the sovereign usurps the opportunities for its practice.

Just as the characters in a comedy thwart death through love, literary works on love affirm that same reality. The destruction of the marriages contributes to the tragedy of King Lear, whilst the hope of Miranda and Ferdinand's wedding is instrumental in the comedy of The Tempest. Both plays involve conflict, but the outcome is determined by the characters choosing love (or failing to do so). Love, then, demonstrates a power to thwart vice, hubris, entropy, and ultimately time and death themselves.

By McKinley Holm

In love our Savior died, in love again he rose

And now in our suffering, we are not alone.

And though in all life, suffering has a season,

Upon the Easter altar cross, in suffering I see reason.

By Angela Beatrice

Salvation through the cross; The Quartets through The Waste Land. So when we cannot pray, when our waste lands are too dense with debris and falsehood, we should pray in and with them, for the end is already decided; involving our cooperation with grace, all will be well and all manner of thing shall be well. Our waste lands are not wasted.

By Makena Wisniewski

We see the reality of fatherhood as not merely a title for God, but His very essence or way of being. The significance of this is that man is not merely a child of God by title, but in reality. And while the fatherhood of God is eternal, so too is the invitation to be a child. Therefore, the vocation of man is to become what he is, a child, and to live through this reality as the ‘turn’ to God, and to finding himself.

By Magdalena Kyne

Through the trivium and the quadrivium, the student understands reality through word and number, a study in preparation for philosophy and then theology. While the Faith is relevant along this whole journey (the Church is not the reason-hater her ill-informed critics claim her to be), it becomes a special privilege the moment you set aside your books.

By Michael Murray

A fool is one who cannot choose between heaven and hell, so he settles for earth and thereby chooses nothing. Paradoxically, the wise fool is one who understands his folly, and orders his soul in union with Divine wisdom. Within the motif of these texts, holy fools engender the world with confusion yet uphold the density and wonder of the mystery of reality. 

By Magdalena Kyne

The radical emphasis on female independence is both dishonest and harmful, creating an idolization of independence where any reliance on men is treated as a weakness or even a moral offense.

By Michael Murray

The journey and exploration into the essence of vulnerability reveals a profound truth. The heart of man will never be what it was made to be without the exposition of the totality of one’s being. Understanding this concept is pivotal for all who desire psychological maturation. What I have found is that in any relationship, there will never be growth without vulnerability; the act of exposing yourself allows you to die to yourself.

By Magdalena Kyne

Machiavelli articulates the wisdom of the world, a cold, shrewd, self-interested calculus. Through witty satire, Erasmus upsets this reasoning; in praising folly, he reveals the common hypocrisy of those considered wise. None exemplify folly better than Cervantes' knight Don Quixote, the adventurer perhaps saner than his critics. However, amongst these thinkers, the saint and mystic Teresa of Avila grasps Paul's point best, as she drew closest to the Crucified during her earthly life. Strength becomes weakness and wisdom becomes folly through the death of the Author of Life, because He did not stay dead.

By Mary Therese Druffner

It is easy to see that things have gone wrong,

How the life we live is not life at all.

Crippled under our smallness,

Our hands above our heads, resisting,

So that a sky of our broken hopes,

unanswered questions and the truth of ourselves

Might not crush our fleshless bodies.

By Joseph Hall

Were the depths his home? Perhaps he had been born from the depths to ride on the waves, only to return with a wave. He felt the wheel tug against him, straining to stay in the trough. His hands loosened; he would fight no longer. He gazed up to the height of the wave, waiting for it to crash down on him and his crew sleeping below. But then he saw Her.

By Makena Wisniewski

Without trying, these men gave me an insight into the masculine heart. And it is one that the world is pretending not to need. So listen up men, we need you! The world is calling you toxic. I’m calling you necessary.

By Makena Wisniewski

“By hiding from the waves, they drowned on the shores. They built nothing and so became nothing. But I built. I was here.”

By Magdalena Kyne

J. R. R. Tolkien’s story of Beren and Lúthien found in The Silmarillion illustrates a woman living into her feminine genius, serving the man’s mission in a way that does not demean her strength, dignity, or equality with him.

By Magdalena Kyne

Rise, sister, and take the place prepared for you. Accept the mantle of your daughterhood; receive the power of your baptism; breathe in the life of the Spirit through Whom we call God Father. Rise, lioness, and understand your strength, a strength bestowed on you from above. Know your own beauty, intended and blessed by our Creator.

By Makena Wisniewski

Indeed, history does not achieve its aim in the death statistics of the concentration camps. Instead, Elie Wiesel’s witness as an ordinary man who endured the worst of hell, has contributed more to history than a textbook ever could.