Collected here are articles and reviews that have appeared in print, as well as a presentation of my books. There are a few interviews and some sound material, notably my reading of the Gospels in Greek, a project that remains work in progress.
Temptations have their usefulness; in them the gold of authenticity is purified. Only, we must consent to the melting-off of dross.
Continue reading In St Antony the life of God was palpably present. This presence revealed man in his natural state, which we are all called to reach.
Continue reading The delight of silence is to us a taste we must acquire, much the way a palate brutalised by sugary soft drinks must undergo a slow apprenticeship, a fasting from overwhelming sensation to relish the distinction of fine jasmine tea.
Continue reading Instead of rising up to follow Christ's call, we say, ‘Mañana - perhaps.’ Meanwhile time passes, grace is lost.
Continue reading The discovery of Antony made Augustine cringe at the half-heartedness of the prayer he had long recited: ‘Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet.’
Continue reading Do you remember the account of Christmas 1886 in Thérèse of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul? It describes the incident which she, that incomparable Doctor of the Church, would later refer to as her ‘conversion’.
Continue reading Christianity is of the dawn - if at times, during given periods, we feel enshrouded by twilight, it is because another day is in the making. If we do want to deal in the currency of ‘pre’ and ‘post’, I think it more apposite to suggest that we stand on the threshold of an age I would call ‘post-secular’.
Continue reading Speaking of 'sexual liberation' we slap a problematic label onto a complex cultural development. In fact, the term rather undermines itself.
Continue reading The Gospel cannot be reduced to a banal, ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’. When it is, it ceases to be Gospel - it becomes, then, just a means to self-deception.
Continue reading As for signs of hope in the Church, I see an immense array, alive in charity and goodness.
Continue reading The Norwegian version of my book on chastity carries the title that from the inception of this project has been my work title, 'Homo castus'. It is my concern to show that chastity concerns more than just sexual morality; that it refers to a way of being human that is characteristic of our essential nature.
Continue reading Zena Hitz writes: ‘I reckon that to hold something in loving attention while reconciled to its permanent annihilation is not humanly possible’.
Continue reading Our aim is to contribute constructively - ours isn’t an angry or overwrought statement. We affirm the preciousness of life, of each person — in whom we wish to recognise a sister, a brother, a potential friend, seeing them as much as possible as God sees them, that is, with immense hope.
Continue reading It is a mistake to reduce personhood to an abstraction, as if it were merely an idea in our mind, potentially changeable at will.
Continue reading In these times of consultations and questionnaires, we are constantly asked to reflect on our responses to things. Our basic mode of understanding is self-referential.
Continue reading It took me years to develop the courage to speak of a 'vocation', the word at first seemed too big for me. Nonetheless, the encounter with monastic life provided in me a sense of recognition, as if it provided a resonance of myself.
Continue reading I am convinced that we're in the middle of a cultural shift in our countries. In a certain sense the process of secularisation has now come to an end - yet the human being remains a human being, seeking meaning, beauty, and truth.
Continue reading After decades of secularisation, our nation has hit material rock bottom; we could hardly become more materialised. Yet the human being remains human, possessed of a longing for sense, truth, and substance.
Continue reading How to recover a coherent conception of the human person in the face of pervasive dehumanising ideologies? A conversation with Sebastian Morello.
Continue reading How could I have invested so much time in careful biblical study yet be left with such a tenuous sense of coherence, of how the whole thing fitted together?
Continue reading I love that moment at the beginning of a concert when each musician plays to him or herself in corporate chaos - then there's a sudden silence in which you can hear the A intoned by the oboe; and all the other instruments align themselves to it, first quietly, then with ever greater strength until, at last they are ready to start. What matters is to learn to listen out for that oboe.
Continue reading What does it mean to be a Christian in today's tension-filled world? What is 'vocation' - and is there any point in trying to 'sublimate' desire?
Continue reading It worries me that modern European usage pretty universally displays an impoverishment of vocabulary. The less able I am to draw careful distinctions between different terms, the more susceptible I am to simplifying generalisations, prejudices, and sheer silliness.
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