Monks in the modern world are daily confronted with incongruities. We dress in tunics and scapulars that were the workaday clothing of sixth-century peasants. We pray the Psalms, composed some three thousand years ago in a language that does not translate into contemporary idioms very well. Many of our customs date from the early Middle Ages (suddenly a controversial era!), presupposing a worldview that is unfathomable to many of our neighbors in Chicago.
Et Incarnatus Est – The Prior’s Blog
The Typology of Job
[The following is from the program notes from our last celebration of Solemn Vespers.]
Saint Gregory the Great is one of the few late Western Fathers whose works were also highly esteemed in the Christian East. There, he is known as “Dialogos,” the writers of the great Dialogues. One-quarter of this famous collection of the lives of saints is given over to Saint Benedict, which means that Gregory holds a special place in Benedictine monasticism.
Solemn Vespers at the Monastery, July 28
Our next celebration of Solemn Vespers with Schola Laudis will be this Saturday, July 28. What follow are my program notes for the occasion. For more information, click here.
Nativity of St. John the Baptist
[The following is from the program notes from our last celebration of Solemn Vespers.]
The figure of John the Baptist loomed large in the imagination of the early Church. This is a challenge for most Christians today. Sure, no one was born of woman greater than John the Baptist, but wasn’t that under the old dispensation? Isn’t the least in the Kingdom of God greater even than John?
Opportunity and Outcome…and Fortuna
Kurt Vonnegut’s prescient short story Harrison Bergeron begins:
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.
On Precursors and Crumbling Walls
A few weeks ago, I compared Jordan Peterson with the medieval theologian Peter Lombard. I didn’t go into great detail on my own intuition in this matter. After some ill feelings about the analogy, I’ve come to reaffirm it in my own mind.
A Crisis of Symbolism
Ten years ago, an old friend, now a committed atheist, invited me to participate in an online discussion between atheists and Christians. As rancorous as some of the “discussions” were, I miss the tough back-and-forth probing of my own positions.
Cutting to the Chase Re: Jordan Peterson
Internet chatter about Jordan Peterson continues unabated. I was hoping to write a slow and leisurely commentary on the phenomenon of his appearance, but I’m not sure one has that luxury. So I am going to jump in a say what I find hopeful about his ideas and the response to those ideas, and then offer some critiques of the same. Afterward, I may take the time to unpack the different themes in his writing and lecturing, particularly in the ways in which his approach and startling insights can help those of us tasked with spreading the Gospel.
Why Monks Sing
Yesterday, I received an email from Jon Elfner, a friend of mine. The email read, in part:
Jordan Peterson and the Life of Faith, Part 2
A less-than-favorable review of Dr. Peterson’s recent book Twelve Rules for Life called it a “self-help book from a culture warrior.” Were this an accurate summary, I doubt that I would have finished chapter one, much less the entire book. This description is inaccurate in two ways, both of which expose the corrosive cultural narrative (one that, I think, the Right and Left hold, for the most part, in common) that distorts what Peterson is saying. Let me deal with the idea of a “culture war” first. I propose to do this by comparing Dr. Peterson to one of the West’s most influential authors whom you’ve (probably) never read, Peter Lombard. This comparison will illuminate the reasons why I consider Dr. Peterson’s appearance on the scene to be mainly a hopeful development.