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Photograph: Rhys Tranter

In a conversation that touches on a range of contemporary political topics, Joseph Tulloch talks to scholar James K. A. Smith about the enduring influence of St Augustine as a theologian and philosopher.

Towards the end of their time together, Tulloch asks Smith, who shares an alma mater with Pope Leo XVI, what kind of influence Villanova University may have had on their thinking:

“It is precisely this German and French milieu that kept returning to the thought of Saint Augustine in the 20th century. I mean, it’s fascinating. People like Heidegger, Camus, Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard – the last three of whom, by the way, are all connected to Algeria in some way. Born in Algeria or working there as adults, they became intellectual stars in France in the middle of the 20th century, and they all had occasion to return to the thought of Saint Augustine. So that is the philosophical milieu which would have shaped part of Pope Leo’s training.”

Source: Vatican News

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Photograph: Rhys Tranter

“The Greek word for alms, eleemosyne, comes from éleos, meaning compassion and mercy. Various circumstances have combined to change this meaning so that almsgiving is often regarded as a cold act, with no love in it. But almsgiving in the proper sense means realizing the needs of others and letting them share in one’s own goods. Who would say that there will not always be others who need help, especially spiritual help, support, consolation, fraternity, love? The world is always very poor, as far as love is concerned”

— St John Paul II, 28 March 1979

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Photograph: Rhys Tranter

Divine Mercy Sunday. We travel to Chapter Arts Centre to see Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie (2001), which is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this year. It was an important film for both of us when we were younger. Audrey Tautou’s iconic performance of the heroic and vulnerable Amélie is still a pleasure to watch, while Jeunet’s kinetic energy and rich colour palette remains the vision of Paris for every tourist. Moving, joyful, and exuberant.

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Fr John Nepil, To Heights and Unto Depths: Letters from the Colorado Trail. Photograph: Rhys Tranter
Fr John Nepil, To Heights and Unto Depths: Letters from the Colorado Trail. Photograph: Rhys Tranter

Taken from Fr John Nepil‘s To Heights and Unto Depths: Letters from the Colorado Trail:

“Creation felt symphonic Everything from the wildflowers below to the stratus clouds above spoke of order and design. The ancients had a word for this-one that would in time become intensely meaningful for Christians. They called it logos.

Some words are impossible to translate and logos is to be counted among them. Polyvalent in its essence, logos can be defined as ‘word, speech, discourse, thought, reason, and meaning’. Rooted in the verb legein (‘to gather, bind, link, or unite’), logos was employed by the Greeks to describe the unifying link of all creation. First described by Heraclitus around 500 b.c., logos was more than a principle of unity; it was the idea upon which the wise man lived. Plato would develop this intuition of logos as the mind, distinguishing it as the agent of creation that he called the demiurge. Stoic philosophers such as Cleante and Seneca saw in it the harmony of the universe, governed by the divine spirit. And at the end of the pre-Christian era, the great Jewish philosopher Philo would see the logos as the first power emanating from God, calling it ‘the bond of the universe’.”

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“[I am] God’s little artist, a seer of strange beauties, a teller of harmonies, a diligent worker,” writes Gwen John, inspired by the example of St Thérèse of Lisieux’s Little Flower. “Strange Beauties” is a retrospective of the Welsh painter’s work and personal writings currently on exhibition at the National Museum Cardiff. A rare and privileged glimpse into a life where creativity and contemplation meet.

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Photograph: Rhys Tranter

This week I had the joy of taking a group of students to the University of Oxford open day. In a few quiet moments, I had an opportunity to pray at the Oxford Oratory on Woodstock Road.

“This church has played a part in the life of many prominent Oxford Catholics. The Jesuit priest and poet Gerald Manley Hopkins served as a curate here. The Newman Society, Oxford University’s oldest student association, was founded here in 1878 (then named ‘the Catholic Club’). Margaret Fletcher founded the Catholics Women’s League here in 1905. J.R.R. Tolkien attended daily Mass here, and the church’s dedication almost certainly inspired Evelyn Waugh when writing Brideshead Revisited.”

— Source: oxfordoratory.org.uk