Category: Article

Some books teach; some books entertain. The best books do both. That is why I enjoy Jane Austen. Each time I read her novels, I am inspired. Beneath her polished prose and sharp wit was an intelligent mind that perceived how easily we deceive ourselves. While she is known best for her female heroines, the men in her novels can serve as models for what a good man does and does not do. In this essay, I’ll concentrate on her novels from The Heights reading list (Pride and Prejudice, Emma,…

Having arguments is better than not having them. The acronym SPEQRS can help history students unpack arguments straight from the primary sources.

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers,” said Anne of Green Gables. “It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it?” Yes, it would. Nothing against September or November (or any other month), but think of all we would miss if we didn’t have October.  Toward the end of September (this year on September 22) is the Autumnal Equinox. The earth tilts so that, in the northern hemisphere, sunlight recedes and night slowly appropriates our day. Because a month measures…

How do you prepare to read (and teach) such an imposing and brilliant work of literature as John Milton’s Paradise Lost? The epic poem in blank verse landed like a conquering army on the plains of English letters, sprung from the windy peaks of Mount Parnassus, where the muses of poetry dwell beyond the heights of ordinary mortals. One doesn’t pick up Paradise Lost for a beach read or something to distract you on a lazy Sunday afternoon. That would be like listening to Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung…

Recollection, I have learned more than once, is the key to avoiding burnout: giving ourselves time to pray, think, and be, quieting the voice telling us constantly to be doing. I’d like to suggest that one means of recollection is a deeper understanding of words.  Take, for example, my favorite humble household words: lord and lady. Humble, you say? Yes, the word has far humbler origins than we realize. Though it might now conjure images of stone castles or stately manors, Lord comes from the Anglo-Saxon (Old English) word hlaf…

Have you ever been presented with a large box which, upon opening, is stuffed with packing peanuts, and, upon digging down, down, through handfuls of the wasteful nuggets, you finally uncover a small and insignificant bauble? That is what I think of when I hear the word “like.”  “Like” has its uses. As a verb it means “to enjoy, be fond of, or have an inclination to,” as in “I like ice cream.” That’s not a problem.  “Like” can also be used as an adjective meaning “similar to,” as in…

(Including Most of the Ones You Send) Apple announced recently that it is working on a new feature that will allow users to stop receiving texts from unknown numbers. The announcement was very popular with users, and not so popular with political fundraisers, for obvious reasons. There is a clear conflict here between the privacy interests of people who don’t want to be bothered on their phones, and the pecuniary interests of people who make a living bothering people on their phones. Senior citizens who are vulnerable to fraudulent text…

Without some prior wonder at creation as the declaration of its Author, and therefore as an intelligible reality that corresponds to minds because it is a product of Mind, all philosophy collapses into skepticism. —Sebastian Morello’s Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries: Recovering the Sacred Mystery at the Heart of Reality  Last year, my wife and I moved to a small Maryland town not too far from our Potomac campus. The house we bought was formerly a two-room public school house in Montgomery County, built in 1899. I’ve met a few neighbors…

The following essay first appeared as an article in Alvaro de Vicente’s Substack publication, Men in the Making. For more articles like this one, you can visit his page here. Subscribe to stay up-to-date on his writing. Over a century ago, the great Catholic writer and philosopher G.K. Chesterton wrote about the distinction between the supernatural virtue of hope and the disposition popularly referred to as “optimism.” On the eve of his reception into the Catholic Church, Chesterton was struck by the Penny Catechism’s teaching that the two sins against hope are presumption…

In 1989, I was a recently married lieutenant in the Army, stationed in Germany, and found myself—to this day I can’t remember how—in possession of a book entitled A Retreat for Lay People. It was a series of talks by a priest named Ronald Knox that followed the general outline of a retreat. Till then, just about any spiritual reading I had done was reminiscent of the times, with lots of exclamation points and titles like In Search of Me. This man was different. His tone was conversational yet respectful….