The most poignant of the unwittingly revealing prefaces of a story that ends badly begins with, “All I wanted was . . . ” This morning, as I was oscillating between the dozing and waking states, there popped into my stream of consciousness the recognition that maybe —just maybe —on a day in which I had nothing else scheduled, I could get some writing done, without interruptions. Fortunately, I’ve a place I can get away to occasionally, as near to a scriptorium as I can hope to find within easy reach. (That fact alone qualifies me for cosmic wrath. Who am I to upset the balance of nature by striving for an unqualified good?)

Read this essay in Touchstone Magazine.

“This book was written as kind of a ‘war journal’ and a spiritual diary,” says the author of Christendom Lost and Found: Meditations for a Post-Post Christian Era, “As a result of writing this book, I have more confidence in God and less confidence in man.”

Read this essay at Catholic World Report.

Lent? Again? Really?

Catholics of various stripes — including the fallen away, the alienated, the angry, the indifferent and the earnest —may be wondering why the Church is still marking the season of Lent at this late date in our secular culture.

Read this essay at The Boston Herald.