Father Robert Lauder has been enjoying movies for more than 80 years. Still, his favorites make for a short list, starting with “On the Waterfront,” from 1954.
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Father Robert Lauder has been enjoying movies for more than 80 years. Still, his favorites make for a short list, starting with “On the Waterfront,” from 1954.
The melding of philosophy and spirituality expressed in art — particularly movies — has turned Father Robert Lauder into a film aficionado. As a philosophy professor at St. John’s University he shows his classes his favorite movies, like “On the Waterfront,” and “A Man for All Seasons.” He wants students to consider if movies can “tell us something about God.”
As I have reported earlier in this series of columns based on Josef Pieper’s book “Leisure The Basis of Culture” (New York: Pantheon Books, translated by Alexander Dru, 1952, pp. 127), though I am re-reading Pieper’s book for the third time, in some ways, it seems as though I am reading it for the first time because I am discovering insights in the book that I have no recollection of discovering in my previous readings.
Re-reading Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture (Translated by Alexander Dru, with an introduction by T.S, Eliot, New York: Pantheon Books, 1952, pp. 127) has been a wonderful experience for me.
I have not kept count of the number of books that I have read or re-read during the pandemic, but they have been many.
From 1953, my first year in college, until today, wherever I have lived, I guess has made my residence a Commonweal-reading household.
My experience of reading Msgr. John Shea’s essay “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age” (Bismarck, North Dakota:University of St. Mary Press, 2020 pp. 94, $13.95) has been that each time I pick it up to read or re-read some section, provocative insights seem to leap off the page at me.
As I mentioned in last week’s column I am hoping that Msgr. James Shea’s Essay “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age” (University of St. Mary’s Press: Bismarck, North Dakota, 2020, pp. 94, $13. 95) is both read and discussed by many.
Reading Msgr. James Shea’s “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age” (Bismarck, North Dakota, 2019, pp. 94, $13. 95), I had a strong experience of nostalgia. The book reminded me of my experience as a seminarian when I read Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard’s marvelous “Growth or Decline?”
I have dreams every night, but usually I don’t remember them. In fact I usually cannot even recall whether the dreams were pleasant or unpleasant.