Your Soul is Worth More than Your Vote

Ary Scheffer, The Temptation of Christ (1854)

It’s election season again, and this one’s a particular mess. “While our broken civilization will inevitably cease to be someday, the same isn’t true of our souls. And it’s these immortal souls that we are rushing to sacrifice on the altar of partisanship. We’re sacrificing the eternal for the temporal, and not even managing to swing the outcome of the election (an election that turns out to matter a lot less than we’ve been made to believe). It’s a Faustian bargain beneath our human dignity. “

Wait for the Lord: Learning from Judith, Anna and Simeon

Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation in the Temple (1499)

In the face of a political and personal future that often seems uncertain or unpleasant, it’s easy to lose heart and to despair of God’s presence in our lives. Fortunately, Scripture presents a radically different message. Here’s what Judith, Simeon and Anna have to show us about aligning our lives to God’s timetable, instead of trusting in secular salvation.

Getting Morality Wrong

Rembrandt, Moses Smashing the Tablets of the Law (1659)

Frequently, morality is spoken of as something akin to the offside rule in soccer: an arbitrary rule imposed by a higher authority that keeps up from getting to do what would make us happy. But this gets morality wrong in every way.

Why Mary is Our Mother in Faith

The Virgin Katafigi with St. John The Theologian (detail) (1935)

Just as the Bible presents Abraham as our father in faith for his radical willingness to trust God, we’re also given a mother in faith: the Virgin Mary. Listen to what Scripture says about her role in following God from the Annunciation to Calvary and into glory.

It’s Time to Re-Re-Evangelize the World

In much of the West, the lights of the Christian faith seem to be dimming, and the world seems to be growing ever colder towards the Gospel. We should take heart in the fact that this isn’t the first time we’ve seen things go south, and we should take counsel in seeing how the Saints succeeded in the re-evangelization of fallen away places like England.

Father Matthew Fish of the Archdiocese of Washington explores this in light of yesterday’s Feast of St. Augustine of Canterbury.