Love Alone

"Love alone brings a human being to full awareness of personal existence. For it is in love alone that man finds room enough to be what he is." ~ Dietrich von Hildebrand / Painting by Daniel Dell'Orfano, courtesy of The Medieval Professor

On Loving, or Being Fond of Being Loved, With George

The good for which we are born into this world is, that we may learn to love … There are people --- oh, such silly people they are! --- though they may sometimes be pleasing --- who are always wanting people to love them. They think so much of themselves, that they want to think …

The Whole Silent Universe

"When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the whole silent universe and man without light, left to himself and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, …

On the Supernatural, With Lewis

The supernatural is not remote and abstruse: it is a matter of daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing. ~ CS Lewis, Miracles

On Humility and Salvation with Lewis

For as God humbled himself to become man, so religion humbled itself to become Christianity. ~CS Lewis, Letter to Mary Van Deusen

For Veteran's Day, from a report of George MacDonald's lecture on 'Macbeth' in Huntly: "Macbeth was a strong, brave man, a great fighter, a great soldier, with fine physical courage . . . Yet we find he had no moral courage. He had physical courage, courage of the nerves, courage of will; but he had …

He is His Soul

If the thief only knew, that is, fully understood, that is, personally realized (what Newman called "real assent") that filling his pockets with stolen money would not make him happy but filling his soul with virtue would, because he IS his soul, not his pockets – if he realized that, he would not be a …

Rest for Heart and Soul

It is vain to think that any weariness, however caused, any burden, however slight, maybe got rid of otherwise than by bowing the neck to the yoke of the Father’s well. There can be no other rest for heart and soul and He has created. From every burden, and every anxiety, from all dread of …

Each Individual Pain

@George MacDonald, speaking on the assigned topic of Faith at one of the interdenominational Broadlands conferences: “I do not see how the weight of this weary world can be borne without knowing that God is by the heart of every drunken man and every troubled woman, and that He takes care of each individual pain—that …

On Bodies and Souls, @Screwtape

For they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. — CS Lewis, Screwtape Letters