There is nothing new in being told that we are dust and shall return to dust. We hear it every year. Ezekiel pondered that when he saw a valley of dry bones. The answer came when God breathed, and the bones came alive again, “an exceedingly great army” (Ezekiel 37:10).

An oral tradition holds that in the course of a reception during the Constitutional Convention, the hearty Gouverneur Morris on a wager, after bowing to George Washington, patted him on the shoulder. Washington cast an icy glare at Morris, and the room fell silent. A man of grace and tact, Washington nonetheless had no patience for what he considered boorishness.

Europe and its contiguous lands were in a chaotic condition in 1240: the Mongols were destroying Kiev, the Novgorod army virtually wiped out the Swedes along the Neva River, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, was pillaging the Papal States using Islamic Saracens as his mercenaries.

During these days of transition in government, temperance in expectations is a wise policy based on experience. Calvin Coolidge said, “It is a great advantage to a president, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know he is not a great man.” The Yankee farmer was frugal with words, but they were not cheap.

We do not need Einstein to tell us that time is variable, or can “bend.” A half hour having a tooth pulled is much longer than a half hour having a drink with friends. Here in New York on New Year’s Day, the Q line extension on Second Avenue was opened, saving subway commuters a couple of minutes to travel about two miles. It cost billions of dollars, as did the Number 7 extension that saved a few minutes from

Painting landscapes in the classical academies was done indoors, to “improve upon nature” the way formal gardens arrange flowers according to geometry. In the nineteenth century, the painters of

In the days before computer screens, when parchments and wax tablets were costly, the writing on them could be scraped off and replaced with new script. That which replaced the old was a “palimpsest,” and sometimes bits of the old text could still be seen under the new.

The schedule for putting together a parish bulletin requires that I write this before Election Day. But as in all decisive moments, the words of Winston Churchill after the Battle of Egypt in 1942 have generic application: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

The same may be said of each important decision in anyone’s life. Churchill spoke on a day in

Today a long-forgotten crucifix will be placed once again in the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome. It will hang in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel near Bernini’s great tabernacle. Bernini himself would have admired the work of the anonymous artist, for its mediaeval style anticipated the spirit of the more exuberant

Exactly eight years ago I wrote a column titled “The One We Were Waiting For” in which I referred to a book by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, The Lord of the World. That dystopian novel has been cited by Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis said he has read it several times.