Friday Links
September 25, 2026
Madresfield Court
Is Brideshead Revisited the 20th Century’s Greatest Novel?
Message of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV for the 60th World Day of Social Communications
Creature and Creator in Frankenstein with Shemaiah Gonzalez
Coltrane’s Shadow
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Declared ‘Blessed’ at Mass in St. Louis
Lethe by Forester McClatchey
Is Brideshead Revisited the 20th Century’s Greatest Novel?
Brideshead Revisited, published shortly before the end of the Second World War, is often referred to as Waugh’s first ‘serious’ book, a claim which, left unqualified, is doubly misleading. As it stands, it implies that the novels preceding Brideshead were nothing more than entertaining diversions or ‘masterpieces of inconsequence,’ as one reviewer said of Vile Bodies. This is drastically wrong, though it is easy to see why many critics thought it true. After all, Waugh appended a note to Decline and Fall stating explicitly that the purpose of the story was to make you laugh.
Message of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV for the 60th World Day of Social Communications
Our faces and voices are unique, distinctive features of every person; they reveal a person’s own unrepeatable identity and are the defining elements of every encounter with others. The ancients understood this well. To define the human person, the ancient Greeks used the word “face” (prósōpon), because it expresses etymologically what is before one’s gaze, the place of presence and relationship. The Latin term “person” (from per-sonare), on the other hand, evokes the idea of sound: not just any sound, but the unmistakable sound of someone’s voice.
Faces and voices are sacred. God, who created us in his image and likeness, gave them to us when he called us to life through the Word he addressed to us. This Word resounded down the centuries through the voices of the prophets, and then became flesh in the fullness of time. We too have heard and seen this Word (cf. 1 Jn 1:1-3) — in which God communicates his very self to us — because it has been made known to us in the voice and face of Jesus, the Son of God.
Creature and Creator in Frankenstein with Shemaiah Gonzalez
Have you always wanted to read this classic novel? Or reread it more deeply? Or simply discuss it thoughtfully with likeminded people? Join us for this four-part seminar in which we will discuss Mary Shelley's novel in depth.
We will divide the novel into four sections and explore topics such as format, identity, literary references, a Christian reading and more. We will find a novel longing for His Presence amongst its pages.
Coltrane’s Shadow
It’s hard to overstate Coltrane’s impact on American music as a saxophonist, improviser, bandleader, composer, and conceptualist. Before his death from cancer at age 40 in 1967, he remade the fundamentals of modern jazz in his own image: melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, form, small-group dialogue, and the sound of the saxophone. His influence, especially the interactive post-bop language he developed in collaboration with his revolutionary quartet from 1961-65, remains omnipresent. His contrails settled as far afield as psychedelic rock (The Byrds), proto punk (MC5), and classical minimalism (Steve Reich).
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Declared ‘Blessed’ at Mass in St. Louis
In his homily, Cardinal Tagle praised Archbishop Sheen as a “storyteller of Jesus” and “a “missionary who digs deep into the heart of the poor to meet Jesus there.”
The cardinal noted then-Bishop Sheen’s passionate advocacy for the poor during the Second Vatican Council. During the 1964 discussions on the document “Ad Gentes,” on the missionary activity of the Church, then-Bishop Sheen asked his brother bishops to “affirm” the notion of poverty and the bishops who came from poor and suffering parts of the Church.
Lethe by Forester McClatchey
He thought he saw her in the orchid house
and all the flowers seemed to disappear,
but someone with a younger, sharper face
and eyes less bright than hers, less cold and clear . . .
This poem won first prize in The First Things Poetry Contest. Read the rest HERE.
