Communion of saints

Related reading and listening

1. When philosophy loses its way — FROM VOL. 52 Ralph McInerny (1929–2010) speaks about themes from his 1999 Gifford Lectures, which relate how natural theology came to be regarded as pointless, resulting in a philosophical dead end.(24 minutes)
2. Foolishness, gravity, and the Church — In this essay, Albert L. Shepherd V explains why George MacDonald’s story “The Light Princess” is meant for “all who are childlike in faith and imagination.” (8 minutes)
3. The (super)natural theology of fairy-tales — Alison Milbank describes Chesterton’s belief that story-telling is an affirmation of transcendent meaning
4. Aslan, the Christ-figure of Narnia — Alex Markos explores the transformational power of Aslan as the Christ figure in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. (31 minutes)
5. Virgil and purposeful history — In this lecture from June 2019, classical educator Louis Markos examines Book II of The Aeneid to argue that Virgil had an eschatological view of history. (68 minutes)
6. Bearing well the burdens of the past, present, and future — Louis Markos shows how great literature like the Iliad links us to the human story and strengthens us to live fully and well. (65 minutes)
7. Books worthy of a lifetime of encounters — FROM VOL. 69 Daniel Ritchie discusses why great books programs survive mainly in Christian institutions while declining in secular ones. (13 minutes)
8. Literature for wisdom, not propaganda — FROM VOL. 23 Daniel Ritchie provides a constructive alternative to the ideological captivity of literature and literary studies. (13 minutes)
9. Apprehending the enduring things — Vigen Guroian explains how children’s literature has the capacity to birth the moral imagination in our children, affirming for them the permanent things. (53 minutes)
10. Flannery O’Connor and Robert Giroux — FROM VOL. 147 Biographer and priest Patrick Samway talks about the relationship between fiction writer Flannery O’Connor and the legendary editor Robert Giroux. (21 minutes)
11. God is in the details — Flannery O’Connor on why stories rely on the particularities of reality
12. The artist’s commitment to truth — Fr. Damian Ference, author of Understanding the Hillbilly Thomist, explores the depths to which Flannery O’Connor was steeped in Thomistic philosophy. (18 minutes)
13. Flannery O’Connor and Thomistic philosophy — Fr. Damian Ference explores the depths to which Flannery O’Connor was steeped in Thomistic philosophy, as evidenced by her reading habits, letters, prayer journal, and, of course, essays and fiction. (48 minutes)
14. Experiencing literature in its wholeness — FROM VOL. 50Glenn Arbery uses the analogies of sports fandom and ritual to explain how a “long habituation” in learning about form in literature enables one to enter into a greater depth of experience of reality through literature. (26 minutes)
15. A fresh and refreshing imagination — FROM VOL. 111Biographer Ian Ker explains why G. K. Chesterton deserves wider recognition as a significant literary critic. (24 minutes)
16. At the trailhead of a long trek — Jessica Hooten Wilson on the discovery of a literary remnant
17. Hooten Wilson, Jessica — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University. She is the author of several books, most recently Reading for the Love of God.
18. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 160 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jessica Hooten Wilson, Kyle Hughes, Gil Bailie, D. C. Schindler, Paul Tyson, and Holly Ordway
19. A myth which is also a fact — Holly Ordway on the existentially resonant power of myth
20. Books, beliefs, and loving conversations — Holly Ordway talks about the need for “intellectual hospitality” when we encounter books (or people) whose beliefs are very different from our own. (19 minutes)
21. Sustaining a heritage of wisdom — Louise Cowan (1916–2015) explains how the classics reach the deep core of our imagination and teach us to order our loves according to the wholeness of reality. (16 minutes)
22. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 157 — FEATURED GUESTS: Allan C. Carlson, Matthew Stewart, Steven Knepper, Holly Ordway, Norm Klassen, and Norman Wirzba
23. Promethean medicine? — Stanley Hauerwas on medicine and limits
24. Suffering and the vocation of medicine — Stanley Hauerwas on why the elimination of suffering is an inadequate (and unrealistic) goal for medicine
25. Rehabilitating authority — Authority, argues David Koyzis, is an aspect of the image of God, exercised to fulfill human vocations. (30 minutes)
26. Faulkner’s tragic vision — Alan Jacobs describes how William Faulkner’s fiction explored the tragedy of living with a legacy of evil acts. (26 minutes)
27. R.I.P. Larry Woiwode — In this tribute to Larry Woiwode’s life and work, Ken Myers presents previously unreleased portions of a 2000 interview about one of his volumes of memoirs, What I Think I Did: A Season of Survival in Two Acts. (29 minutes)
28. The consequential witness of St. Patrick — Thomas Cahill describes how the least likely saviors of Western heritage, the Irish, copied all of classical and Christian literature while barbarians rampaged through the rest of Europe. (16 minutes)
29. Art and the truth of things — Joseph Nicolello explains the origins and themes of his imaginary dialogue between Jacques Maritain and Flannery O’Connor. (28 minutes)
30. The story of the demotion of stories — Malcolm Guite on the Enlightenment’s rash dismissal of poetic knowledge
31. Words of truth, words of Life — Hans Urs von Balthasar on the primitive (but now largely lost) unity of theology and sanctity
32. How should we then die? — Stanley Hauerwas asks how the fear of death shapes the practice of medicine
33. Feelings made articulate — Glenn C. Arbery on poetry and the intelligibility of the inner life
34. The wide, wide resonance of local details — Novelist Larry Woiwode on the unbreakable bond between specificity and universality
35. Quarantine’s lessons: patience, hope, the Church, medicine, and more — In the first in a projected series of Features, Stanley Hauerwas shares some thoughts about lessons to be learned while living under quarantine. (13 minutes)
36. Freedom and equality according to Flannery O’Connor — Three guests discuss Flannery O’Connor’s ideas: Henry T. Edmondson, III, on O’Connor’s understanding of political life; Ralph C. Wood, on O’Connor as a “hillbilly Thomist”; and Susan Srigley, on O’Connor’s sacramental and incarnational fiction. (18 minutes)
37. Discussing Walker Percy — Jessica Hooten Wilson and Jay Tolson offer insights into Walker Percy‘s life and writing, including how Dostoevsky influenced Percy’s work. (17 minutes)
38. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 143 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Regnerus, Jessica Hooten Wilson, John Henry Crosby, John F. Crosby, Wynand De Beer, and Sørina Higgins
39. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 142 — FEATURED GUESTS: Stanley Hauerwas, Perry L. Glanzer, Nathan F. Alleman, Jeffrey Bishop, Alan Jacobs, D. C. Schindler, and Marianne Wright
40. Only domesticated religions are safe to be free — Stanley Hauerwas on why “freedom of religion” carries subtle temptations
41. The risk of stories — George Steiner on the necessity of vulnerable imaginations
42. How literature becomes a habit — Flannery O’Connor exhorts English teachers to maintain high standards
43. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 125 — FEATURED GUESTS: Brent Hull, David Koyzis, Steve Wilkens, Roger Lundin, Craig Bernthal, and Kerry McCarthy
44. “Freedom” as tyranny — Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon on democracy, desire, and freedom
45. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 123 — FEATURED GUESTS: Nicholas M. Healy, Christian Smith, James K. A. Smith, Esther Lightcap Meek, Richard Viladesau, and Jeremy Begbie
46. The disabling consequences of winsomeness — Stanley Hauerwas on how many modern Christians offered atheists less and less in which to disbelieve.
47. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 120 — FEATURED GUESTS: Douglas Rushkoff, Phillip Thompson, Jonathan Wilson, James Bratt, D. C. Schindler, and Paul Elie
48. Stanley Hauerwas on the modern idea of freedom — Stanley Hauerwas: “Protestant churches in America lost the ability to maintain the disciplines necessary to sustain a people capable of being an alternative to the world.”
49. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 114 — FEATURED GUESTS: Susan Cain, Brad S. Gregory, David Sehat, Augustine Thompson, O.P., Gerald R. McDermott, and Marilyn Chandler McEntyre
50. Roger Kimball: “Josef Pieper: Leisure and Its Discontents” — Roger Kimball introduces listeners to Josef Pieper’s arguments about the nature of leisure, which are claims about the nature of philosophy and of human well-being. (34 minutes)