Monday, February 29, 2016

Paul Scalia's homily for his father, Justice Antonin Scalia

Those of us who have lived in the Diocese of Arlington are familiar with the eloquence of Paul Scalia's homilies.  What a difficult task it must have been to give the homily for his own father and before such audiences.  

This homily is not sentimental, but it is moving and full of power.  It is worth the sixteen minutes.  Rhetoric is a dying art and the word "rhetoric" has become a synonym for sophistry, but this is worthy of a Demosthenes or a Cicero. 







I will not analyze the homily in detail.  Michael Pakaluk provides an excellent analysis in Crisis.

Justice Clarence Thomas, whom Paul Scalia reconciled back into the church, was a lector doing a reading from Romans.  Senator Cruz, a Southern Baptist, interrupted his campaign to attend the funeral.  You can read an account of the funeral in the New York Times.

Monday, February 01, 2016

Twentieth Century Martyr Leads to Twenty First Century Miracle

In a previous post, I prayed to Blessed José Luis Sánchez del Río for Kathleen Parker.  Maybe a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist is a bridge too far even for one of God's heroes, but hope is one of the theological virtues.  

I knew of the young martyr's heroic sanctity.  What I did not know is the nature of the miracle that has advanced Blessed José's cause.  If you can read the story of Ximena Guadalupe Magallón Gálvez with dry eyes, good on you.  But the glory of miracles is that they are eucatastrophes: yes, the story has a happy ending!  Read it—it will make your day.