An anecdote to start with: Sitting at the dinner table about four years ago, my then-3-year-old eldest son expostulating about what he’ll do when he grows up. He’ll build a tractor factory, he says, and inside the factory he’ll hang a massive sign, reading: “Daddy-time, all the time!” The psychologists would tell me that his … Continue reading What nobody told me about having (a lot of) kids →

Every Sunday in Christ the King Chapel at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, the mass is celebrated with all the pomp and ceremony that the traditions of the Catholic Church and the humble means of that small college allow—glittering vestments, billowing incense, a liberal helping of Latin, and numerous grave-faced altar servers. And music. … Continue reading For God’s Sake, Make Music →

In 2005 I spent three months in Rome. In some ways I have never left. Perhaps it sounds like a commonplace to say that I “left part of myself” in the Eternal City. But the fact is, I did. I returned to Rome once more, in the spring of 2007, when I proposed to my … Continue reading Building the New Rome →

Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! And we,    Light half-believers of our casual creeds,            Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed    Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,        Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill’d;            For whom each year we see    Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;        … Continue reading The Spark from Heaven: The Mystery of the Monastic Life →

A lot of people are mad about the new translation of the Mass. For my part, I have always had a phobia of debates about liturgical arcana, which somehow seem to sap the vitality of my liturgical fervor as fast as you can say Summorum Pontificum, and I will not pronounce on the goodness or … Continue reading Sin and the Decent Chap →