The Vulgar Morality of Tam o’ Shanter: A Tale by Robbie Burns
January 25 marks the birthday of Robert Burns (1759-1796), the national poet of Scotland, and is observed worldwide with the Robbie Burns…
These Parables: The Unmerciful Servant
St. Peter was an impetuous man, unlike his most recent successors, and so his reserve through our Lord’s discourse in…
These Parables: The Net
Without a “sense” of the Church, Jesus’ parables can be reduced to exercises in moralism. Fundamentalist readers, or even those…
Jungle Fever: Reading for the Heart of the Summer
There is something distantly primal and tribal about summer, when sunny days and sultry nights seem to unconsciously conjure up the…
Coincidentally: Of Cabbages and Kings
Alice was rightly perplexed in Through the looking Glass when the Walrus said it was time to talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and…
Captain Blood and the Real Pirates of the Caribbean
It was bound to happen. Even the venerable and visceral occupation of piracy has fallen to the vicissitudes of the movies….
Infandum
In 1789 George Washington prayed in St. Paul’s Church, on what we now call lower Broadway, on the day of…
To Beatrix in the Shadows: Johnny Town-mouse After 100 Years
One century ago, as the shadows of World War I were fading away, shadows were closing in on Beatrix. After nearly…
A Tale of Two Cities: Read It Again for the First Time
It is the best of tales, it is the worst of tales, it is for the age of foolishness, it is…
These Parables: The Mustard Seed
By a delicate symmetry, the parable of the mustard seed takes up just two verses of the Scriptures (Matthew 13:…
