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Love and Redemption

by | Aug 6, 2009 | Atonement

“Everybody Loves a Lover,” sang Doris Day. Perhaps this explains why the medieval romance carried on by correspondence between a monk and a nun nearly nine centuries ago continues to cast its hypnotic spell on artists and audiences across the ages of pages...

The Satisfaction of Honor

by | Jul 2, 2009 | Atonement

It was the high noon of the Middle Ages, the 11th century (ad 1001 to 1100). Although closer to completion than ever, the project of establishing a “Christian Europe” was still a work in progress. Like it or not, the middle 1,000 years or so of church...

The Lamb Before Its Shearers

by | Jun 25, 2009 | Atonement

Back in the 19th century, in London’s Central Criminal Court (also known as the Old Bailey), a witness might be asked the question, “What kind of night was it?” And it was considered neither odd nor impertinent for the response to come back, “It was a dark...

Losing Sight of the Lamb

by | Jun 18, 2009 | Atonement

I like things to be simple. I like them to be clear. What can I say? I’m a simple guy. I prefer bullet points to paragraphs, illustrations to explanations, and maps to directions. I prefer monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon words (like “ask,”...

The Lamb that Was Slain

by | May 28, 2009 | Atonement

I was in second grade at St. Christopher’s School in Midlothian, Illinois. The ink was still drying on the documents of the Second Vatican Council in Rome and I was preparing for my First Holy Communion in the Catholic church with about 30 to 40 other children...

Behold, the Lamb

by | Apr 30, 2009 | Atonement

In the winter of 1977, a tragedy was painfully and painstakingly unfurled in the Monroe County, New York courtroom of Judge Hyman Maas. Eleven months earlier, on April 27, 1976, a Roman Catholic nun and school teacher, Sister Maureen Murphy, surreptitiously gave birth...