"From enjoying the imitation, they come to enjoy the reality." - Socrates, in Plato's Republic

One reason to read great works is the opportunity to identify in the lives portrayed characteristics we want to have, as well as those we should avoid.

I like Burley Coulter. I like him, at least in part, because he "caused a lot of trouble for himself and other people," as Wendell Berry puts it.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, today's liturgy presents to us enlightening yet at the same time disconcerting words of Christ.

At the risk of seeming disrespectful or irreverent, I'd like to propose that the parable in today's Gospel is, well, funny.

Allowing ourselves to feel suffering is the only way to heal from suffering.

As a teen in the 1980s, I was at a moral crossroads.

"These people will also discover the seemingly insignificant conventions their predecessors have destroyed…

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted". (Mt 5:4)  In his commentary on this Beatitude in Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI writes that there are two kinds of mourning: 

One of the great tragedies of the 1960s was an erosion of American morality.