There are two difficulties with writing about Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. One is saying anything fresh about them. The other is seeing them at all.
Contrary to what is typically asked of him, the just man does not need imagination but attention. Poetry, too, requires a kind of pure, focused attention.
Philosopher Emmanuel Falque asks what Christians might now say that could actually matter to their post-Christian contemporaries in the academy or the arts.
Commonweal’s editors share their favorite pieces of the year—on the Synod on Synodality, economic inequality, the therapeutic mindset, and much, much more.
“What better way to quell our fears than to tame them into stories and draw our loved ones near by sharing them—say, around a fire, with a cup of mulled cider?”
Louise Glück weaves together poetry and prayer. Kathryn Davis writes of loving, reading, dreaming, and dying. The two leave us unmoored and longing for more.
