Good’s Disfigured Face

Some of you know that I am a fan of 19th century English literature.  My favourites are Dickens, Hardy and Twain.  I haven’t much enjoyed 20th century fiction largely because I have found it too harsh, hopeless and often gratuitously salacious for my tastes.  However, a few years ago I became interested in a twentieth century Catholic novelist, Evelyn Waugh, particularly his novel Brideshead Revisited.  I was uncomfortable with the marital immorality…

Avoiding Destructive Good

Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 58 “…[The realization of the good we desire] belongs to God. For this, a man has need of God’s help.  Therefore we accompany our good desire with constant prayer, and we pray not only because we need help, but also so that we can distinguish whether it [the good we desire] is pleasing to God’s will or not. “For not every fair-seeming desire falls…