There was an important meeting last May in Rome at which Pope Francis gave a marvelous talk on art. How I wish I had been there. There are several ideas in the Holy Father’s talk that I find both beautiful and exciting. 

I have just finished a book by Jon Hassler, who is one of my favorite novelists. I have referred to his novels in the course on the Catholic novel that I give at St. John’s University and also in the series of 50 lectures that I did on the Catholic novel and that are available on YouTube.

I read Charles Dickens’ novel “A Tale of Two Cities” as part of a requirement in an English course I took in high school. I recall liking the novel very much. Though I do not recall many details of the plot, I do recall that reading the book was an assignment I enjoyed. 

I cannot guess how many hours I have delayed before writing this week’s column. Actually it has been not only a matter of hours but a matter of days. Three or four times I sat down to start the column but gave up rather quickly. 

In last week’s column I tried to explain what I mean by my belief that every person is magnetized by God. The belief has become more important to me in recent years. 

I often have the impression that all the news about the contemporary world is bad. Of course this is not true, and I find that in trying to offset the bad news it is helpful for me to remind myself of some basic truths about the human person that I have learned from philosophy.

I have come to believe that every person has what I call a philosophy of life. By that I mean every person has some view of what being a human person means. For some this philosophy is relatively clear even though they may agree that the meaning involves some mysteries.

Recently I did something that I have not done in years. One evening, in almost one sitting, I read a truly great play, Robert Bolt’s play about St. Thomas More, “A Man for All Seasons.” 

There is a section in Bernard Cooke’s “Sacraments & Sacramentality” (Mystic, Ct. Revised Edition, Twenty-Third Publications, 1994, pp. 241, $14.95) in which he discusses the nature of conscience and how celebration of the Eucharist can shape and form our conscience.

I suppose that all words have a history. In dialoguing with students in philosophy classes at St. John’s University I have found that words such as “subjective,” “objective,” “experience,” “faith,” and some others, I almost always have to either ask the students what they mean by those terms or explain what I mean when I use those terms.