A Pilgrim's Platen

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To See The Sun No More

I recently traveled to Houlton, Maine, to participate in a seemingly national cultural event: the viewing of the total annular eclipse. It was not a journey that I had really planned out beforehand. The decision to go at all was in question up until the hour before I left. I made the trek up to the northern half of the state that I have learned to call home with a close friend of mine who had also awoken that morning, unsure of his participation in the journey. As we drove up with plenty of time to spare we could not help but notice the immense amount of traffic on a hundred-mile section of the interstate which rarely sees more than three cars at a time. It was clear to us that people wanted to see this eclipse. As rather lukewarm astronomers, we were unprepared for the mass of people we would encounter when we reached our viewing destination.

An Ode to Change

Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. These few lines sit at the very beginning of T.S. Elliot’s famous Four Quartets: a great work that I do not pretend to understand or appreciate to the level it deserves. If it were not that a man who is considered to be a great writer wrote these words, my instincts would be to interpret this first stanza from Elliot as foolish, repetitive and unproductive ramblings. If time is relative and its significance constantly reconnects to itself, then time as a linear existence does not seem to make sense, or at least it is significant. Today's events can be significant to me because of the way they relate to events that happened to me twenty years ago. That does not mean that this point in time is the same as the point in time twenty years ago, but it does mean that in a way, through my memory, my imagination, and the...

The Queen of Sorrows

The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a title that draws us into the profound mystery of her role in salvation history, yet it is also a title inseparable from her deep and abiding suffering. To honor Mary as Queen is to recognize not only her exalted status but also the sorrows she endured with a mother’s heart, sorrows that were inextricably linked to her reign as the Queen of Heaven and earth. Mary’s queenship, far from being a crown of mere glory, is intertwined with a crown of thorns. From the moment of her glorious fiat, her joyful acceptance of God’s will was shadowed by the knowledge that her Son was destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel. Her journey from the Annunciation to Calvary was marked by a profound union with Christ’s redemptive suffering, a union that sanctified her role as the Queen of Sorrows. Consider the prophecy of Simeon, who told Mary that a sword would pierce her soul. This prophetic image is a key to understanding her queenship. Unlike earthl...