If you ever plan to motor West, travel my way; take the highway that’s the best.

During a long break that I had in graduate school, right after I passed my candidacy exam, I decided to take songwriter Bobby Troup’s advice and drive all the way from my home in Columbus, Ohio to Los Angeles, following the path of historic Route 66. Built in 1926 as a link between the Midwest and the West Coast, this road soon became the subject of songs, novels, and television shows, and has come to symbolize America’s fascination with auto travel. Even decades after being superseded by interstate highways and then officially decertified, the route continues to inspire the adventurous—as shown, for example, in the 2006 Pixar film, Cars.

Most of the old road is still drivable, and so I traversed the route from Chicago to Santa Monica over the span of twelve days, visiting tourist traps, staying in motels, and eating at diners, drive-ins, and dives along the way.

Peter Parker learned an important lesson from his Uncle Ben: If you have power, use it for doing good. The lesson is simple enough, but is there not a contradiction here? Can power and goodness coexist? Today, “power” often brings to mind the vicious realities of oppressive dictatorships, corrupt politics, heartless bullying, and abusive relationships—an association which is understandable for those who have themselves experienced the tyrannical abuse of power. Using one’s power for selfish ends is precisely the kind of action that Uncle Ben warns against. Unfortunately, God, who is all-powerful, is sometimes seen as using his power in this self-centered way.

A question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

More flies are caught with a spoonful of honey than with a hundred barrels of vinegar.
—St. Francis de Sales

No doubt Machiavelli would have considered the wisdom of the saintly bishop of Geneva somewhat quaint, or even dangerously naïve. And it’s easy to see why.

Nobody likes to look like a fool, especially not a Dominican. Sure, it can be fun to play the buffoon for a bit to get a laugh or to make a point as long as when the dust settles it’s perfectly clear that our ignorance was feigned. Those unfortunate situations when we get caught with our proverbial pants down usually lead to intense brooding and a frantic review of what mistake could possibly have left us looking so naïve. These moments can be educational and formative in many respects, sharpening our mental acuity and keeping us on guard against making the same mistake in the future. When applied to intellectual pursuits, this discriminating eye can help us obtain a clearer vision of the truth. A danger arises, however, when we turn such a sharp instrument on our brothers.

You can’t argue with that: it’s science!

With all the force of an incantation, these two words have the power to transport their speaker to the heights of argumentative high ground. Flung down like a nobleman’s gauntlet, they indicate that the debate has just taken a definitive—and deadly—turn. The “argument from science” is one of the most effective weapons today’s disputants keep in their arsenal. I’m not talking about the legitimate use of a well-chosen example from biology, or a knowledgeable appeal to an obscure experiment from particle physics. I’m talking about the argumentative one-punch KO, “You must be wrong because some Scientist somewhere said otherwise.” And yes, “Scientist” gets capitalized.

As the uncreated Word of God, the Lord Jesus is the key to all the Scriptures. The New Testament itself bears witness to this truth. St. Paul interprets the beginning of Genesis in the light of Christ as “the New Adam” (Rom 5:12–19), and at Pentecost St. Peter preaches Christ as foreshadowed in the Psalms (Acts 2:14–41). The Evangelists frequently tell us that Christ did or said a particular thing “that what was written might be fulfilled” (cf. Mt 26:53–56). In the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5–7), Christ offers direct commentary on the Law (“You have heard that it was said . . .”), and in the synagogue at Nazareth, Christ closes the scroll of Isaiah and proclaims, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21).

Obedience: few words are more likely to make an American shudder. It’s practically a swear word, like “truth,” “humility,” or “hierarchy.” We are a nation that was built upon liberation from a monarchical government, which our forefathers resented for imposing taxes on their tea and playing cards. Yet, as tempting as it might be to focus on the problem of obedience as something peculiar to the United States or even to modernity, we know that it’s nothing new:

The highly acclaimed television series Downton Abbey has taken Britain and the United States by storm in its first two seasons, and many fans anxiously await the premiere of its third season (coming to the U.K. this fall and to the U.S. in January). Set in the early twentieth century—the first episode begins with the sinking of the Titanic—the show deals with the triumphs and conflicts both of England’s wealthy elite and of the men and women who serve their households. It chronicles the lives of the fictional Crawley family, the aristocratic residents of the Yorkshire estate called Downton Abbey, whose abiding concern is to confirm an heir to their name and fortune.

Instagram has taken off like a rocket. In just under two years this unique social network has gained over 80 million registered users. Instagram thrives on turning photos of everyday life into trendy, artsy images. Photos are squared to resemble old Polaroid images, and filters are applied to give the photo an artistic look, with the saturation adjusted to emphasize different parts of the picture. As more and more people choose to transform their snapshots with Instagram, I ask, “Why are Instagram images preferred over a normal photo?” I think the answer is that the Instagram filters do something our eyes cannot: They adjust the color and the saturation of light in order to distract us from seeing the reality of the entire picture. We focus on one thing while the rest is blurred or skewed.

This year marks the ninety-fifth anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother to three children at Fatima, Portugal. On September 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared for the fifth time at the Cova da Iria (“Irene’s Cove”), where these three children tended sheep. It is a little known fact that a Dominican friar of our Province of St. Joseph enjoyed a unique encounter with one of these child visionaries. The visionary’s name was Sr. Lucia, and the priest was Fr. Thomas McGlynn, O.P. Before recounting how this encounter took place, a little background must be given.