Feast Day: February 1 Henry Morse lived in a most turbulent time, from 1595 – 1645. He was born to a Protestant family in Elizabeth I’s England, which, though politically quite stable, continued in religious turmoil. Henry VIII had broken from the Roman Catholic church and begun a systematic...

Michelangelo’s David is a work of art that is over-used and over-satirized; we think we know it. Seeing it in person in its beautiful space in the Accademia, the David became new to me, beautiful and imposing and breathtaking. He is nearly 17 feet high and stands on a...

This icon, which is believed to have been originally venerated in the monastery of Keras Kardiotissas in Crete, has been much copied and honored for hundreds of years, a source of comfort and a guide to prayer and devotion. The earliest traces of its tradition arise in the late...

May 18th is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Saint John Paul II. It is a good time to sit quietly and ask for his help in thinking about his life, his experience of a century of violence, and his consuming love for Christ. I was recently told,...

St. Catharine fought demons of self-hatred, sadness, despair, and spiritual lethargy. Was she oppressed by Satan, or did she suffer from clinical depression? It would be presumption were I to guess; I think that the two are probably more closely intertwined than we can understand. The spiritual weapons that...