Victor Lee Austin

  “We need to take care of the children; after all, they are the future.” Lots of people say this—you may have said it yourself. It’s a common sentiment in the church, I’ve found. When talking about Sunday school or catechism (or whatever a particular church calls it),... Read More →

    Death is our ancient enemy, and yet in many lives there comes a time when we should not resist death but accept it. This is a paradox, and it poses a basic question: how to accept death while continuing to affirm the sanctity of human life. An elderly woman was... Read More →

  He came to a midweek theology class I offered but not to Sunday church. He was drinking the truths about God like the young adult he was, totally innocent of Christianity. Creation, the cross, the resurrection, the importance of the body: All of this was news to him.... Read More →

    In the first chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, Saint Paul writes: “The preaching of the cross is to them that [are] perish[ing], foolishness; but unto us which are [being] saved, it is the power of God.” Recently preaching on this passage, I first... Read More →

  A brilliant novel from 2021 that is mostly about life lived in “the portal,” that is, on social media, makes, mid-course, a dramatic turn and engages the world of the flesh. The sister of the unnamed female narrator conceives a child who is prenatally diagnosed with a... Read More →

  In the Great Litany one finds the following petition: “From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death, Good Lord deliver us.” Why is “sudden death” in this list? What is wrong with sudden death? Most people... Read More →

He came to a midweek theology class I offered but not to Sunday church. He was drinking the truths about God like the young adult he was, totally innocent of Christianity. Creation, the cross, the resurrection, the importance of the body: All of this was news to him. Theology was... Read More →

    “The future belongs to people with children, not with things,” wrote Charles Chaput in First Things a few months ago. If you are young and you want to change the world, counsels the Catholic archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, then “get married, stay faithful to one... Read More →

  I have recently returned from a seven-week pilgrimage, walking the traditional Camino Francés across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. I was part of a host of pilgrims that this year will number several hundreds of thousands. As we peregrinos passed through villages and... Read More →

The point of having children is to increase the number of the saints. In the 1979 Prayer Book—which in this regard sets forth a more traditional exposition than its U.S. predecessors—children are one of the three intentions God has for marriage. “The union of husband and wife . .... Read More →