It is said the most valuable and hoarded treasure of the modern world is information.  Most of this seems to be in the form of what we call “data,” but there’s also the ambiguous word of “content” that fills our screens and servers.  But, paradoxically, it seems our oceans of information have made us shallower in thinking.  We are stor...

By: Joseph Gruber Far from a monolithic text that talks down to us from on high, the Bible is a collection of texts that all call us to draw near, to listen, to see anew, and then to act rightly. Sometimes, though, I find that men aren’t sure how to read the Bible in a meaningful way. And this is sad, because in Scripture we can find not only st...

The following was featured in Sword & Spade, a magazine for men edited by Jason Craig. The Odyssey by Homer is one of those towering works that has been read and taught by scholars for so long that it might seem best left to them, not to be enjoyed by the common man. I propose that every Catholic man, as an inheritor of the great Western Tr...

I was once reading a book in a Verizon store as I awaited a phone repair, which was apparently a significant enough oddity that multiple people made a comment to me.  I knew I was going to pass time, which is why I brought a book, but I didn’t realize that in a store of screens reading can be received as a sort of protest.  (I kind of liked tha...

As a Benedictine oblate, people ask me regularly: what does it mean to be an oblate? Most importantly, it entails taking the Rule of St. Benedict as a spiritual charter for how we live the Gospel. St. Benedict is clear at the opening of the Rule: incline your ear to the words of the Master and run to meet Him. The Master is Christ and the Rule help...

Because I did not grow up in a traditional parish system, complete with schools connected to the parish you attend, I don’t naturally have affection for parochial schools.  I am well aware of the good that they did and continue to do, especially in providing halfway decent education to inner-city children in a few places.  I also know, howe...