Category: HeightsCast

 In the opening paragraph of his Confessions, St. Augustine writes, “our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”  For many, the first half of this famous line is a well-known feeling; it is, in many ways, “the feeling of actual life,” to put it in Hemingway’s own terms. Indeed, there lives deep down a desire in all of our hearts for some mysterious reality — a green light across the bay — which seems to forever escape our grasp. Many are dreamers; fewer have found an object worthy…

Growing up is, at least in part, a process of learning to ask, and learning to answer, certain fundamental questions. These include timeless queries such as “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” Our sons, in particular, might ask themselves, “What does it mean to be a man?” and “What is the point of my life right now, given that I’m not a man yet?” Our boys’ attempts to answer these questions, along with the answers those efforts yield, will lead them to a certain self-awareness—an identity of sorts….

In this week’s episode, we sit down with Mr. Michael Moynihan to discuss his new book, The Talk and Beyond.  In the book, Michael shows parents how they can best communicate to their children God’s plan for human love.  The book offers insights on how parents can comprehensively form their children to embrace the beauty of marriage. In this episode, we speak with Michael about: The significance of the title: why the beyond part is crucial. What “the talk” is and how parents can approach it. Why his book is especially relevant in…

On this week’s episode, we discuss technology with Mr. John Beatty, IT director at The Heights School.  While in past episodes we have spoken about smartphones, social media, and other forms of digital technology, in this episode we turn our attention particularly to the use of the internet on desktop computers. As always, our aim is not merely to put up walls and make rules, but rather to help our sons grow in freedom.  Our sons are not machines to be programmed, but rather humans to be formed; and this…

We have often heard it said that parents are the primary educators of their children.  Among others, we find the seeds of this idea in Cicero, for whom nature herself has instilled a “strangely tender love” for one’s children.  It is likewise hinted at in Aquinas, who referred to the parental care of young children as a sort of “spiritual womb”.  More to the point, just over half a century ago The Church herself, in Gravissimum educationis, has reminded us of this fundamental fact: “since parents have given children their life, they are…

It is not on bread alone that man lives, but also on every word that he receives. And just as one’s diet shapes his bodily growth, so too does one’s verbal digest contribute to his interior development. Of course, not every sort of bodily growth is good; and, likewise, not every slogan that one receives is in itself spiritually salutary. In this week’s episode, Mr. Kyle Blackmer considers the ways in which phrases, lyrics, mantras, slogans—in a word, the words we hear repeatedly—shape the imagination, at times for good and,…