On Mistaken Belief          The last book in C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia  called, The Last Battle , portrays different responses when a person believes something is true that later is learned to be false.       Now hard times had come on Narnia, and many Narnians were enslaved to the Calormen – although the Ape (a stooge for Tash, the Satan character) wants to convince them they are not enslaved. Ape mocks the Narnians as being naive for thinking they are enslaved and says, “Tash is only another name for Aslan [the Christ character]. All that old idea of us [Narnians] being right and the Calormenes wrong is silly. We know better now. The Calormenes use different words but we all mean the same thing. Tash and Aslan are only two different names for you know Who.... Get that into your heads, you stupid brutes. Tash is Aslan; Aslan is Tash.” Lewis is describing a situation where good and evil are so mixed as to be allegedly the same, and anyone who thinks otherwise is mocked.       N

The Catholic Mind       “What Makes the Catholic Mind Unique?” is the title of an article by Fr. David Meconi, SJ, in the December 2020 issue of New Oxford Review magazine, available online.       To summarize his presentation, we might start with creation: space, time, matter. “God’s world,” Fr. Meconi says, “by its very nature, is a sacramental that lifts human minds to their Creator through the divine embeddedness of matter. For the truly Catholic mind, this world is awash with grace.”       “Embeddedness” here is something like St. Paul’s expression that God’s “eternal power and deity has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” ( Ro 1:20 ). And yet it goes further. It means God’s incarnation. Not absorption – we are not God, the universe is not God.       Incarnation means the Second Person of the Divine Trinity assumed human flesh in Jesus Christ, which flesh has the particularities of matter, time, and space. “He is a God who has become visible thanks to

What Is Real?       I’ve been mulling over a recent conversation where someone confided to me that she has questioned for years and years what is real and how does she know what is real. I’ve had the same questions! And how can I really trust what I know when society, others, our culture, seem to say the opposite?       The more I’ve mulled over that conversation – thinking about recent political events, and what the culture seeks to impress upon us that disconnects from our real experience – I’ve become convinced that a lot of us must also have the same questions.       I think it is an evil that began in Genesis when the devil, that snake, asked, “ Hath Godsaid...? ” and sowed doubt where there otherwise was clear certainty.       The devil found the hook by human desire turned inward to self. We want something more: God, truth, beauty, peace, love, happiness. Yes! We are made for this! We are made for God and only the Infinite will ultimately satisfy us. But when we, instead, look f

Baptism of the Lord       This Sunday, January 10th, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord.       St. John the Baptist tells us, “For this I came baptizing with water, that he [Jesus Christ] might be revealed to Israel.” John testifies, “I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” ( Jn 1:31-34 ). The evidence, the proof, John says, that Jesus is the Son of God is the Holy Spirit descending and remaining upon Jesus ( Jn 1:32-33 ; cf., Mt3:16 , Mk 1:10 , Lk 3:22 ). This was the first remarkable sign when John baptized the Lord Jesus.       There was a second remarkable sign: “A voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased’” ( Mk 1:11 ; cf. Lk 3:22 , Mt 3:17 ). This voice from heaven also came at Jesus’ transfiguration: “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased, listen to him” ( Mt 17:5 ; cf. Mk 9:7 ) and, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” ( Lk9:35 ).       God the Father’s voice alludes to at lea