The Hidden Connection Between Miracle on 34th and Mr. Blue
We can only imagine that, to borrow from Chesterton, Connolly and Davies and all their characters are enjoying their “great flagons in the tavern at the end of the world.”
Stephen Mirarchi (Ph.D., Brandeis University) is Assistant Professor of English at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. He is the author of the annotated editions of Myles Connolly's Mr. Blue, Dan England and the Noonday Devil, and The Bump on Brannigan's Head . His academic work has appeared in Christianity & Literature, Dappled Things, Religion & the Arts, Seminary Journal, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, and others. His journalistic work has been published in the Boston Globe, the National Catholic Register, Crisis, and others.
We can only imagine that, to borrow from Chesterton, Connolly and Davies and all their characters are enjoying their “great flagons in the tavern at the end of the world.”
If you open the heavy tome of J. R. R. Tolkien’s collected letters to almost near the end, you’ll find a particularly fascinating epistle. In just a few short pages, Tolkien gives words of encouragement to his son Michael; reminisces about a happy trip to Switzerland; and records a year-long break in the writing of …
As a friend and I were speaking the other day, he pulled out his phone to silence it. I happened to notice the wallpaper on his phone and thought I recognized it. “Hey, is that the Sacred Heart icon that Cardinal Burke commissioned as Bishop of Lacrosse?” I asked. I had spent some time in …
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Priests around the country hailed the move as the Church’s growing understanding and embrace of a shifting culture.
About a year ago, a friend went through some complicated medical procedures. They took several months and a fair bit of travel. Ultimately the procedures were frustrating. The doctors finally told him, “We don’t know why it’s happening, and there’s no cure.” “At least it’s not life-threatening,” my friend said with a wry smile. Most …
Each year many people love watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We can imagine some commonsense reasons for that. One of the most important, though perhaps unacknowledged, has something to do with the miraculous. Quite frankly, it has to do with the Grinch’s spiritual life, and his extraordinary conversion. For most of us, the classic stages …
One of my good friends, whom we’ll call Rob, tells the most extraordinary stories. That’s probably because he’s had a most extraordinary life. First exposed to porn at age six or seven, he quickly found that he couldn’t live without it—or so he thought. Turns out Rob has an obsessive personality—exactly the kind of person …
That Time a Demon Invaded the Confessional, and a Porn Addict was Released Read More »
At first a limited release, the missing-person thriller Searching has garnered rave reviews from the nation’s top critics. It’s an impressive showing for first-time director Aneesh Chaganty, a former Google employee. Critics have hailed the film as a contemporary take on a familiar “whodunit” story, and they point to John Cho’s performance as particularly moving. …
Is the Growing Hit Film “Searching” Anti-Christian? Read More »
One of the pioneers of the modern Catholic novel, Georges Bernanos earned a top literary reputation even in his lifetime. The author is far from being merely a darling of the academy, however. The popes of the last fifty years have widely appreciated Bernanos. Here are some examples of why popes have called on his …
From the works of Brad Thor and Vince Flynn to Matthew Betley, military thrillers regularly top the bestseller lists. They’ve been popular since at least the 1950s, but after 9/11, readers have absolutely flocked to them. In light of Pope Francis’s recent change to the Catechism involving the inadmissibility of the death penalty, however, some …
Can We Still Enjoy Military Thrillers After Changes by Pope Francis? Read More »