Victor Lee Austin

  I am increasingly persuaded that we find the best example of friendship in the Old Testament in the Book of Job (not in the stories of David and Jonathan). Job has three friends who, when they hear about his calamities, arrange to go together to him. They intend to be with him... Read More →

      It was in a short piece posted by a cranky young blogger a little over a decade ago that I first read about dogs replacing children in the lives of young adults. This correlates to cohabitation replacing marriage in this cohort, but it reflects a cultural change... Read More →

  As Moses spoke face to face with God his own face was being transformed into a glowing brightness that would be too much for the Israelites to look upon; for their sake, he covered his face when he went out to speak to them. Moses’ transfiguration is a type or anticipation... Read More →

So when we are talking about the prolife “message” breaking through in our culture, what we are talking about is reality breaking through in various cultural products. Read More →

  One is not likely to think of Barbie as a pro-life film. Its premise is that there is a “Barbieland” ruled by women, an excessively pink world of upbeat and positive people who never age, perfect in skin and attitude. It is not a world of sin and hardship, where people age... Read More →

    March 25 is the feast of the Annunciation, the annual celebration of the angel’s announcement to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and give birth to Jesus. Since March 25 falls in Holy Week this year, its celebration has been postponed to the second week of Easter.... Read More →

    A teenager was murdered in a mass shooting at his school in 2018. By 2020, his parents had founded a nonprofit which, among other things, produced a political commercial. The ad opens with an introduction by the parents. Then these words appear on the screen: “We... Read More →

    The traditional Nine Lessons and Carols opens with the carol “Once in Royal David’s City.” The words were written by Cecil Frances Alexander in 1848; they first appeared in the U.S. in Cantica Sacra, Hymns for the Children of the Catholic Church, in 1865. In the lessons... Read More →

  Caring for the sick: It’s what Christians do and have done since the beginning. Jesus healed the sick. Insofar as they could, his followers did the same. And whenever they could not heal, they stayed with the sick and did not abandon them. Caring for the sick leads to... Read More →

  Some things are good because they are useful in relation to something else, but other things are good simply in themselves. A friend of mine makes this point about children. You don’t have to give a reason for having children. Children—like all people—are ends and not... Read More →