ArteFact

It is the fall of 1947 on the ruggedly picturesque Cornwall coast, and Reverend Bott must write a sermon. A normal part of the job, yes, but the minister is struggling with this one, for the occasion is particularly challenging. People were dead, others had survived, but he could not exactly deliver a funeral sermon. The bodies in question were already irretrievably buried under a massive, collapsed cliff. All had been guests or employees at the ramshackle seaside hotel at the base when, not without (unheeded) warning, the cliff had fallen, engulfing the inn and all who were inside. What could anyone say in the face of such a tragedy? Thus opens Margaret Kennedy's clever novel, The Feast, originally published in 1950 and re-published recently by Faber & Faber.

Modernity has flattened and fractured our cultural understanding of the human person. Dr. Holly Ordway, Word on Fire’s Cardinal Francis George Professor of Faith and Culture, offers a refreshing counterpoint to this decline in her recent book, Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography. Laying out meticulously researched evidence, she presents J.R.R. Tolkien as a whole man, a man whose faith enlightened his mind and his relations, a man fully alive.

Will Arbery’s 2019 play Heroes of the Fourth Turning received significant critical attention after its release, with both left- and right-leaning media seeing it as a hermeneutic for understanding the role played by American Catholic conservatism in the election of Donald Trump. However, the play has received little recognition for its more incisive anthropological and ecclesiological insights.

Last summer, Netflix released the fourth and penultimate season of the sci-fi horror drama Stranger Things to widespread rave reviews. Many fans saw this latest installment as a return to the exceptional storytelling of the show’s first season. For those of us with an interest in theology, it provided a compelling exploration of the age-old battle between good and evil that resonates with Catholic spirituality.