Carthage Must Be Destroyed

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. ~ Daniel 7:13-14 This Sunday is the the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. A fitting Mass for Thanksgiving weekend. The Solemnity proclaims that Christ is preeminent over all creation. But Jesus’ rise to kingship is like no other. The desire for power is itself a powerful thing. Man has always craved power. We like to control things. But as history tells us, power also corrupts. The irony of power is that the more you desire and attain it at the expense of others, the more it destroys you–a basic survey of the history of the Byzantine emperors alone will prove this s...

The Bible is full of little nuggets–stories that seem so simple in passing but have deep meaning upon further reflection. The Last Supper is explicit enough as an event in Sacred Scripture. The Synoptic Gospels and the First Epistle to the Corinthians give us the explicit Eucharistic narrative. But there are other stories, or nuggets, that are implicitly connected to the Mass. One I find compelling is the story in the last chapter of the Gospel of Luke where the risen Jesus travels with two disciples along the road to Emmaus. Here, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” And later, the disciples exclaimed: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” This is in the same vein as the Liturgy of the Word, when Christ, the Word of God, opens to us the the Revelation of God. When the party arrives at their destination, they compel Jesus to st...

Today is Reformation Day. To those of you who know that I am now a Catholic, it will be obvious to you that my view on the Reformation has “changed” somewhat. I’ve done a great deal of thinking and would like to share a few things. Jesus says in the Gospel of John on the evening before he was to suffer: “That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Naturally, looking at the many divisions within Christianity, this is not fully realized. Many would say that we are in fact one, spiritually speaking, but in light of the incarnational nature of Jesus Christ, of which all who are baptised are members of his body, this calls for a visible and an ...

What's your Top Ten Classical Pieces Ever? (Renaissance-Modern). No soundtracks are allowed. After compiling my last, several things I noticed: 1)Bach makes it thrice, Mozart zilch. 2) I typically favor Baroque and Romanticism (most of the would be honorable mentions were also from those eras). 3) Gustav Holst is English. I had no idea. Alec Bach 1. Air on G String– Johann Sebastian Bach– Baroque 2. Canon in D–Johann Pachelbel–Baroque 3. Missa Papae Marcelli: Kyrie–Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina–Renaissance 4. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring–Johann Sebastian Bach–Baroque 5. Jupiter–Gustav Holst–Early Modern 6. 9th Symphony–Ludwig van Beethoven–Classical/Romantic 7. Rhapsody on Paganini–Sergei Rachmaninoff–Romantic 8. Cello Suite No. 1–Johann Sebastian Bach–Baroque 9. Piano Concerto No. 1–Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky–Romantic 10. The Swan–Camille Saint-Saëns–Romantic What's your list?