With all the past persecutions of the Christians in mind, what does Jesus mean when he says, “Not a hair of your head will perish”?

So-called gender-­inclusive language (such as using they instead of he or people instead of men) theologically excludes individuals, both men and women, from salvation.

Here on earth, we may be tempted to believe the lie that the only reality is division and hatred, destruction and death. But the resurrection of Jesus puts us back in the Garden of Eden.

Judas’s kiss was deeply painful, for his kiss was a betrayal, not just of a symbol, not just of a friend, but of the Kiss himself. Judas used a kiss to betray his Kiss.

During a pandemic, we are to keep our eye on the soul, for pandemics can harm the soul even more than the body.

This year, I’m taking the vaccine called contemptus mundi (contempt for the world).

Vaccine passport mandates violate the unity of the body of Christ; as such, they are a most egregious denial of the heart of the gospel.

It is as if heaven itself turns down to the earth, while simultaneously, the earth turns up to the sky. The kiss of righteousness and peace is the Advent kiss of the hypostatic union of God and man.

Obsessive cultural fear of physical suffering and death has blinded and immobilized us, like prisoners staring at the end of the cave.

Sacramental ontology is to metaphysics what sacramental exegesis is to hermeneutics: Christian Platonism allows us to read both creation and Scripture as theophanies—or, I should perhaps say, as Christophanies. Far from denigrating either the Old Testament or the created order, Christian Platonists recognize them as divine.

What we need is the boldness of the early disciples. For theirs was a boldness founded upon divine conspiracy, the true antidote to today’s totalitarian impulse.

No matter how dangerous, we dare not avoid the therapeutic gospel, for we need the Spirit to heal the passions of our souls.

In some ways, we do read the Bible like any other book. But this observation comes after the recognition of God’s providential economy in Christ.

Angels live off the Word that eternally proceeds out of the Father’s mouth.

Natural justice matters; but it matters only inasmuch as it participates in the supernatural justice of the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus learns two lessons—the two things that make up the content of Christian catechesis: earthly things and heavenly things.

Our worship ought to be a genuine enfleshment of the Beauty of God.

One of the most remarkable features of our society is its blithe dismissal of tradition. Religious practices that have long shaped our social and political life are held in contempt. Time-tested convictions that guided generations before us are not just second-guessed but mocked and denounced.

Thomas shows us that to believe in Jesus is to worship him.

Mary Magdalene is in Paradise, in the Garden of Eden. But she doesn’t know it yet.