A Short History of Valentine
It is common to celebrate days with little knowledge of their origin. The traditional Valentine’s Day or The Feast of Saint Valentine is such a day. “Valentine” derives from “valens,” which means strong, worthy, or powerful. These are apt descriptions for this little-appreciated martyr. Tradition and legends abound. The truth is we have yet to learn much about the life of St. Valentine. We know that around 278 AD, Valentine, a holy priest in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed. The precise day is well acknowledged as February 14th. Claudius was known for his cruelty. His unpopular and bloody … Continue Reading “A Short History of Valentine”
A Debt Owed to Love | Communication & Gift-Giving
[dropcap]C[/dropcap]ommunicating accurately and well is an act of love. We have to love both the object that is being communicated as well as the recipient of that object. Communicating means giving and not taking. We need to care about the person to whom we are writing or speaking—in every instance. We all have read certain writers who appear to write in order to see themselves on the page. They write as if they are constantly looking in a mirror. They are the obsessive selfie-takers. They are the ones who walk down the sidewalk with their headphones in so that they … Continue Reading “A Debt Owed to Love | Communication & Gift-Giving”
DESTROYING the TEMPLE: C.S. Lewis on Distorted Love
But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the emotions but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people. – C.S. Lewis [1] [dropcap]I[/dropcap]n just two short sentences, C.S. Lewis strikes a hard blow against the understanding of love that runs wild in our current popular culture. Words like “will” and “learn” are words that rarely, if ever, crop up in any discussions about love. They sound so contrary to the spontaneous eruption of emotion and infatuation that … Continue Reading “DESTROYING the TEMPLE: C.S. Lewis on Distorted Love”
“My Wife is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World”
A Series Exploring C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves In this second installment on The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis, David Foucachon explores how Lewis’s commentary on Eros can help us understand the objective nature of beauty. I am a Christian platonist. But neither Plato, nor the Neoplatonists, nor even St. Augustine convinced me of platonism. No, it was my wife’s beauty that made me a platonist. More specifically, the task of reconciling subjective aesthetic experiences with a worldview that affirms the objective nature of beauty. If we affirm that beauty is objective (and we should), then how can two men each … Continue Reading ““My Wife is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World””
Candor: What Jane and Lizzy Bennet Can Teach Us about Charity
The Four Loves | A Series Exploring C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves One of Lewis’ great accomplishments in The Four Loves was his ability to push back against both the errors of his ancestors, and the errors of his own time. Like Augustine, Lewis understands that “our hearts are restless until they come to rest in Thee” as he writes about the different loves, from the familiar warmth of Affection, to the powerful bond of like-minded Friendship, to the intoxicating passion of Eros, to the grace-filled love of Charity. In this first installment, Leta Sundet explores “candor” as Jane Austen uses it. This idea of candor … Continue Reading “Candor: What Jane and Lizzy Bennet Can Teach Us about Charity”