Who Am I Here?
This article was previously published in Sword & Spade magazine. Ed Toth, Fraternus Sage, didn’t recognize his worldly attachments and identities until they were gone. I remember hearing the revelry and cheering outside as the new year dawned on December 31st, 2019. I was alone, laying on the floor of my newly emptied office...
An Idea to Remember Identities in the Season of Diplomas
This time of year is always marked by transitions. Whether it be graduations, weddings, or simply traveling for the summer, we often find ourselves moving from one place to another, or from one state of life to the next. And what do we typically do? We seek to commemorate these things in some way. We have diplomas to certify our accomplishments, ma...
What this Irishman Thought on St. Pat’s Day
By: Damien Murtagh I stood on the corner of Campbell and Market lamenting. I've never felt so lonely in my life despite being surrounded by thousands of people including 4 of my children. I probably wasn't the only native Irishman watching the pretty significantly sized parade go by and perhaps I wasn't the only one wrestling with myself this morn...
Work, Identity, and Christian Faith
Who am I? This is the persistent question of modern man. Many end up defining themselves by their work. Is this wise? Is this the best approach for Christian men? After many years of languishing on my endless reading list I finally got around to reading Josef Pieper’s modern classic, Leisure: the Basis of Culture. For those not familiar with t...
Know Thyself: Reconnect With Your Ancestry
The singer Bono famously remarked (although not for the first time) that America is an idea. America is not founded upon a particular ethnicity and at first was not bounded by any particular geography. It was an idea, or even the possibility, of a particular kind of freedom – the freedom to begin again and to be whatever you want to be. Now we...
Senator Ben Sasse on How to Overcome Our Parenting Crisis
The goal of parenthood is to raise our children into adults. And as you might have noticed, we are failing miserably at this task. Senator Ben Sasse reflects on the urgency of addressing this crisis in his book, The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis—and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance (St. Martin’s, 2017). He states h...
Becoming Who You Are
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” –Mt 4:19 The Gospel of Matthew 4:12-23 is a great one: Jesus begins his proclamation of the Gospel with a simple command: “Repent.” It’s the condition for entering the Kingdom of God. He proceeds to walk along the shore of the lake and call his first disciples: Peter and Andrew, ...