As both a mother and an academic, the month of May bears a special significance to my vocation. It is, of course, the month in which we celebrate Mother’s Day, but it is also a month devoted to Mary, the Mother of God. Mary was not only a good mother: she can also rightly be […]
By IHE Fellow Lucia A. Silecchia I saw them in the department store — a mother and a little girl about five years old. The child, in her restlessness, sought to wander away during what must have struck her as a very dull way to spend time. Sifting through a clearance rack is not the excitement […]
By IHE Graduate Fellow Ian Tuttle “Winter kept us warm,” wrote T.S. Eliot, “covering / Earth with forgetful snow.” Spring, then, is a time for relearning the world. Was there ever a better student than John Clare? Born in tiny Helpston, Northamptonshire, England, in 1793 to illiterate parents; barely schooled; farm laborer by the age […]
By Lucia A. Silecchia With the arrival of Easter, one of the greatest joys in the lives of parishes around the world is the opportunity to welcome new sisters and brothers in Christ through the sacred celebrations at the great Easter Vigil. To all who celebrate this profound moment this year, welcome! May the graces […]
By IHE Scholar Lucia A. Silecchia Every year, when I flip my calendar to December, thoughts of Christmas overwhelm me with anticipation of the joys to come and the great gift of Christ’s Nativity. Yet, when I open that same calendar to the month of March, my initial thought has never been, “The Solemnity of […]
By IHE Graduate Fellow Thomas Holman These days we are exposed to a lot of cross-cutting accusations of irrationality. A near-ubiquitous trope in contemporary political discussion is that those with whom we disagree are stupid or need to be reeducated. The people on the other side of the argument are just not being reasonable. But […]
By IHE Graduate Fellow Morgan Whitmer As Ash Wednesday approaches, we are given an opportunity to remember death and repent from sin. When we receive the ashes, we hear the refrain, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” prompting us to remember God’s response to Adam after the fall: “You are dust and to dust you […]
By Lucia A. Silecchia The groundhog spoketh. I rarely attach much weight to the opinions of rodents. Yet, when February rolls around, I do pay some amused attention to the prognostications of a certain Punxsutawney Phil — not to be confused with his less renowned colleagues, Staten Island Chuck, Essex Ed, Buckeye Chuck, and the […]
By Lucia A. Silecchia With a new year still in its infancy, I find myself surrounded by new calendars. In so many different ways, these are tangible reminders of the importance of time. Scripture speaks often about the sacredness of time, with the assurance that “[t]here is a time for everything, and a season for […]
By Lauren Revay I remember as a child having a weekly coloring page depicting a different scene from Scripture. In a sense, the scene came alive well before I could read or understand what was contained within the rich words of the Gospels. Little did I know that many years later those scenes would not […]
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