Besides scientism, another subject, perhaps the subject that Percy deals with more than any other is the mystery of the human person. In his six novels and his books of essays, Percy focuses on what it means to be a human person, what it means to be an image of God. Right now I cannot think of a more important topic.
The dumbing down of the theology of symbols has, however, led to the unhappy situation in which perhaps a majority of Catholics do not believe that the Eucharist is what the Lord Jesus said he was giving us: himself, fully and unambiguously.
On the Feast of the Assumption, the Holy Mother Church is pulling aside the curtain and showing us the reward that awaits us at the end of our lives, if we are faithful. The Church is saying to us, “You know all those promises that Jesus made in the Gospel about eternal life. Well! They’re going to come true, and as proof behold your Mother Mary because in her they have already come true.”
The experience of the pandemic is an experience that we should never forget and pray that we never have again. Probably for each of us, the experience has been in some way a learning experience. It probably forced all of us to reflect deeply on our lives and our relationships. I have come to believe that all of us are a product of our relationships — our relationships with God and with others.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam [For the greater glory of God], often reduced to the abbreviation, AMDG, was the Latin motto of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. Georgetown Prep is a Jesuit school. So what happened to the D-word? What happened to God? Why did AMDG become AM[D]G while being translated into fundraising English?
In February 1968, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła wrote Father Henri de Lubac, SJ, about a project in which the cardinal was engaged: a philosophical explanation of the uniqueness and nobility of the human person.
During a short papal flight from Boston to New York on October 2, 1979, Father Jan Schotte (later a cardinal but then a low-ranking curial official) discovered that Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, had done some serious editing of the speech Pope John Paul II would give at the United Nations that day.
Polemics about the Second Vatican Council continue to bedevil the Catholic conversation. Some Catholics, often found in the Churches of western Europe, claim that the Council’s “spirit” has never been implemented (although the Catholic Lite implementation they propose seems more akin to liberal Protestantism).
Since plague time began, I’ve found the following books reassuring, challenging, illuminating, and in some cases just plain fun: which is to say, apt reading in, and for, this troubled moment.
In 1918, Mayor James Preston presented a 264-piece silver service to Cardinal James Gibbons on behalf of Baltimore and its citizens — a municipal tribute to the city’s beloved archbishop on the 50th anniversary of his episcopal consecration.
