Each year’s editorial review seems to portray twelve months of lunacy and sorrow with a few bright moments shining through. We look back at the year, and it seems half-lunacy, half-sorrow with a few bright moments shining through where they have penetrated our overpacked awareness. The year 2015 was no different. Here are some pieces Aleteia thought might be worth a second look before we turn the calendar page. In chronological order:
1)
Billy Graham’s Surprising TED Talk, by Matt Becklo
Graham does what probably many in the audience were not expecting him to do: he makes a compelling case for a reasonable faith that has everything to do with technology — especially its limitations. “David found that there were many problems that technology could not solve,” Graham declares. “There were many problems still left. And they’re still with us. And you haven’t solved them … the problem is within us, within our hearts and our souls. Our problem is that we are separated from our Creator, which we call God.” More…
2)
The Day God Barged Into My Life: Fr. John Riccardo’s Amazing Testimony, by John Riccardo
At that very moment, I had an actual vision of our Lord in my car. He sat next to me. It was clear that it was him. I was still crying. He reached across the seat and dug his right hand into my chest and said, “John these are all your dreams, goals and desires and everything you want to do with your life.” He withdrew his hand and pulled everything out and motioned throwing it all out the window. More…
3)
10 Signs Christianity Is on the Rise, by Tom Hoopes
The bottom line is that if Christianity is true, then we can expect it will continue to rise and not die. If it’s not true, then it will certainly die — and the sooner the better. But since Jesus Christ really did die and rise and leave us the sacraments, don’t expect it to go away anytime soon. More…
4)
Europe’s Ghosts of Faith, by Philip Jenkins
This is all the more potent in cities and small towns that still retain the Christian imprint on every street, every Heiligegeiststrasse (Holy Spirit Street) and Paternoster Row, and in which the whole urban plan is still shaped by parish boundaries. Across Europe, neither God nor the church is easy to miss. You know when you have arrived in Catholic Bavaria or Austria when people start greeting you with Grüss Gott (Greet God, or originally “God guard you”), rather than the coldly secular Guten Tag, which sounds so foreign and German. The ghosts of faith walk everywhere. More…
5)
The Attack on the Family, by Joseph Bottum
The family is a premodern arrangement of human life, and the modern turn subjects all premodern things to deconstruction: philosophy, theology and history; monarchy, nobility and the Church; culture, art and society. It just took us this long to dig down to the family. Richard Howard is a late, miniature Voltaire, and the president of Smith College is a tardy, shrunken Jacobin. More…
6)
Chairman Robert George: Religious Freedom Shouldn’t Be a “Second- or Third-Class Concern” for U.S. Policymakers, by John Burger
“I believe that our government does care about the plight of Christians in the Middle East,” George said in an interview Tuesday. “What I’d like to see is religious freedom and the need to come to the aid of persecuted people and prisoners of conscience be elevated to a higher status in the minds of our policymakers.” More…
7)
The Home of Mary Magdalene Is Being Resurrected, by Zoe Romanowsky
Not only did archeologists find the synagogue, they unearthed an entire town — the ancient town of Magdala, believed to be the hometown of Mary Magdalene. So far, the dig has uncovered three ritual purification baths, supplied by fresh springwater (the highest of the six possible gradations of water quality for a ritual purification bath, according to experts), marketplaces, residential areas, thousands of first-century coins (including numerous “widow’s mites”), lots of period pottery and even a Roman sword in its sheath. In addition, the infrastructure for fish processing has been discovered. A similar one exists in Spain, but it’s not nearly as complex and well developed, according to Father Kelly. “Flavius Josephus reported that fish processed in Magdala was sold in the markets in Rome and that has now been validated,” he said. More…
8)
Mobile Hair Salon Offers Beauty in Transition for the Homeless, by Dominique “Peak” Johnson
It is an unexpected service, Wood says, driving to shelters around the country in a refurbished truck she purchased through Craigslist. Most of the stylists who volunteer their assistance are from trendy “pop” hair salons. A traveling salon catering to homeless clients may seem unorthodox, but a simple hairstyle can help an invisible person feel visible. More…
9) Francis’ Visit Made Me Reexamine Myself, and I’m Not Sure I Like What I See, by Kirsten Andersen
Last week, Pope Francis called our bluff as he appeared to take us at our word. Over and over, he asked us — the ones who like to pretend we have it all together — to pray for him, while he showered love, blessings and words of comfort on the ones who couldn’t pretend to have it together if they tried. More…
10)
Giving Others Notice, Even When it Costs Us Something, by Elizabeth Scalia