The Way of Beauty Podcast

It was my pleasure to be invited by Bonnie Landry, who lives in British Columbia, Canada, to an conversation on her podcast for Catholic families and homeschoolers. Here are Bonnies show notes:The Way of Beauty by author David Clayton is a book I'm reading presently. We are loving the book so much that I wanted to interview David to help explore the ideas he presents in light of family life. We can augment the richness of Catholic family life through beauty and parents will reap the harvest of deepening their understanding of beauty and the role it plays in our lives. We expand our ability to contribute to the culture through David's exceptional book. 6:17 - How do we cultivate an appreciation of beauty in family life? 16:25 - How to engage children in Sacred art18:40 - Harmonious proportion and how it plays out in our lives 34:43 - The Liturgy of the Hours and it's patterns 40:57 - What is the best way to encourage artistic ability in children? 50:23 - The Way of Beauty and The Little Oratory books

Can the love of the common good be recovered when we live in countries whose culture and institutions seem at odds with it? Should we retreat in enclaves, join secession movements, or stay put in our local community, wherever it may be? Can a political common good ever be achieved given the political realities that we live in? What is the Christian called to do in such a situation?

A pilgrimage for the conversion of the state and the nation and for freedom, on the Octave of Pentecost.

David Clayton, Fr Brad Elliot OP, Dr. Michel Accad, and Charlie Deist discuss the rediscovered ideas of Ivan Illich, who died 15 years ago, and in particular an essay from a collection called Shadow Work. His essay describes how the imposition of Castilian as the national language of Spain by Queen Isabella, became a tool of the state for control of the people. We also show how the development of communication through the printing press created a desire to control its use and has parallels today in how big institutions and governments are trying to control the flow of information through the internet. Permalink

Why the search for social justice, self-help, sentiment and parish programs is the worship of self. And why the worship of God will give us the authentic justice, self fulfillment, true happiness and genuine community we all yearn for.

Body, soul and spirit! An engaging and somewhat philosophical conversation on principles of health. How do we identify good nutritional and exercise habits? Amongst the myriad of fads, what rules should guide one's health choices and behaviors?

Family, Nation, Church and the Well Thought Out Philosophy of Trumpian Conservatism

David Clayton and Charlie Deist discuss the trouble in DC on January 6th, Donald Trump's Executive Order on Architecture, and his Presidential Proclamation on the 850th Anniversary of the Death St Thomas Beckett.

Caleb Brown talks about how Marshall McLuhan, Thomas Aquinas, and his Christian faith contributed to his writing of Blue Ridge, a murder mystery set in the Appalachians, which never mentions Jesus, church or Christianity once.

Pontifex University Press publishing another collection of essays by Fr. Vincent McNabb. This volume is called The Wayside: A Priest's Gleanings. Mike Hennessey, a lover of the writings of McNabb wrote the foreword to the book. He discusses how this collection of early essays reveals his great charity and holiness. Mike is the chair of the Belloc Society and he gives us fascinating insights into the influence that McNabb had on Hilaire Belloc. The essays we refer to specifically from the list below are: The Riches of Ritual, Jane Seedcombe Woolweaver, and An Innocent (which is about the alcoholic prisoner). Buy the Kindle Edition - $8.60 The Wayside: A Priest's Gleanings By McNabb, Vincent, Horwitz, Matthew Buy on Amazon Buy the Paperback - $15.95 By McNabb O.P., Fr. Vincent, Horwitz, Matthew Buy on Amazon Permalink

The beauty in Catholic culture speaks of the unity that brings families and society together in peace through Christ.

I'm with composer Paul Jernberg once again. Our starting point is the following excerpt from Musicam Sacram and the following statement:Musicians will enter on this new work with the desire to continue that tradition which has furnished the Church, in her divine worship, with a truly abundant heritage. Let them examine the works of the past, their types and characteristics, but let them also pay careful attention to the new laws and requirements of the liturgy, so that "new forms may in some way grow organically from forms that already exist, and the new work will form a new part in the musical heritage of the Church, not unworthy of its past.How does a composer balance the new with the traditional, proscribed forms with invention? Paul gives us his approach. PaulJerberg.comMagnificatInstitute.com Permalink

This is a march in which we meditate upon the spiritual meaning of marching itself. It is exercise that is natural to us - walking - that is ordered to our ultimate end. I see the 50 miles as a symbol of Pentecost, the 50-day after Easter on which the Holy Spirit descended upon us. It is a call for conversion and Christian chivalry.

Paul Jernberg and I discuss in greater depth exactly what constitutes sacred music and how this corresponds to what the Church has said on the subject, particularly in the controversial encyclical, Musica Sacra (which is often used to justify rock bands in church! )

William Deatherage is a recent graduate of Notre Dame is on fire for the Faith. He interviews me for ClarifyingCatholicism.org a new hub featuring a team of new and dynamic writers and bloggers!

Can COVID-19 instead be viewed as a kind of hormetic stressor — a shock to the system that forces a vital adaptation?

Marian devotion nearly died out after Vatican II due to misinterpretation of the Council, some willful. First Paul VI, with Marialis Cultus (1974) and then most significantly John Paul II who reversed that.

A combination of Protestant Evangelical fervor and the methods of church-planting ‘missiology', and orthodox Catholic teaching and practice.

When we order all that we do to our highest calling, union with God, doors open in front of us regardless of where we start from.

Jim Woodward was temporarily sectioned in a mental ward in England when he was 24 and diagnosed as psychotic. That was 24 years ago. Now, because of the Vision for You process, he has transformed. He is a stable and happy contributing member of society who has converted to Catholicism and sees his faith as central to his life. He now runs his own business and lives in Orange County, CA.

Did you know that Mark wasn't the first gospel to be written? In fact, they were written in the order in which they appear in the Bible - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The spiritual exercises of the Vision For You process will encourage personal discipline in harmony with our natural purpose in life. We not only have greater self-discipline, but we also have a better sense of how to direct it.

A gulf-war veteran describes how the Vision for You process changed his life: I urge you to watch or listen to this. My friend Peter Murphy was sent to the first gulf war just a few weeks after his 17th birthday. When he returned he was mentally ill for years, eventually being diagnosed with PTSD. I am a stiff-upper-lip Brit, but a tear came to my eye when he described the effect of his change had on his marriage and how it gave him a family. God is good!

Which painting would you rather contemplate on your deathbed? How this question in an art history class made a believer out of a young atheist Lawrence Feingold

There is a prejudice in the West today, even among orthodox Catholics, that elevates the written word above visual art in the culture. Consequently, we have lost the art of connecting symbols to hidden realities and to the detriment of personal holiness and the Faith.

The lesson seems to be, once again, that science is catching up with tradition. Conform your spirit to God's will, let your spirit rule the rest of the soul and the soul rule the body and all is well.

Philosopher Jennifer Frey talks to David Clayton about St Thomas, Boethius, happiness, suffering and the virtuous life.

If you inherited so much money that you never needed to work again for the money, what activity would you do five days a week? As long as what comes to mind isn't actually sinful, then the chances are that it is what God wants you to do too!

This week, I am going to direct you to the first of a series of three talks that I have been invited to give for the Institute of Catholic Culture. In this one, I describe the story of how I met David Birtwistle at a cafe in the King's Road in Chelsea, London in 1988. As a result of this contact, I asked him to take me through a series of spiritual exercises, even though I was a sour atheist. I describe how he sold me on taking this process. The result of this is that I became an artist, as I had always dreamed, and I became a Catholic (which is beyond anything I'd ever imagined for myself). The link is here. The Institute of Catholic Culture, Part 1. Scroll down to the bottom for the video, which is an hour long.

This process of looking at the nature of man and considering how he can be healthy and graceful is part of the holistic vision of the Way of Beauty and is fully Christian. This is the new Body, Soul and Spirit movement. What the New Age should have been!

The Way of Beauty Podcast - Episode 46 Christopher West and David Clayton on techniques for popularizing theology and philosophy so as to engage non-believers and believers alike. Our inspiration is St John Chrysostom - ‘golden mouth' - but each of us can be golden mouthed and honey tongued if we are true to our personal vocation!

The Way of Beauty Podcast #45. David Clayton and Adam DeVille talk about the solutions to the crisis of abuse of sex and power in the Church that don't involve the Bishops.

We discuss how the Way of Beauty offers a route to holiness and formation for seminarians and lay people.

You don't need to be a monk or a nun to be a mystic. Every single one of us is meant to be one, and through the Christian tradition this can happen at our local parish church. Fr Jeffrey Kirby's book tells us how.

How do you turn your average Catholic parish that follows the missalette and is a state of carefully managed decline - it has an aging and declining congregation and doesn't mind as long as the people who go are happy? How do you persuade a successful Praise and Worship parish - whose liturgy is barely distinguishable from an Evengelical Christian worship - that there is something even better?

Here David Clayton and Paul Jernberg discuss how you deal with real people and real situations in order to change the music. This is the mission of Paul's Magnificat Institute - magnificatinstitute.org

One of the unique facets of Christian spirituality is contained in the way that sacred music speaks to the heart. This does not happen via the manipulation of emotion, rather the response of the heart preceeds emotion and is more authentic than it.

David Clayton and Paul Jernberg discuss how sacred music must be performed with a unique artistry. Do chorister pray or do they perform?

Here Paul Jerberg and I discuss what can be done to introduce good sacred music in your parish and the need for a formation for choir directors, priests and bishops. Sacred music is not just a matter of subjectivity - most priests and bishops seem to have lost sight of the fact that there are objective standards.

Here I talk to Matthew Horwitz who was the editor of the Pontifex University Press republication of a series of essays by Fr Vincent McNabb called God's Dealings With the Minds of Men, Essays on Biblical Inspiration, Mysticism and the Imagination.

Marxism and socialism sees man and his freedom as despensible to the ‘greater good' which is a flawed understanding of the Christian idea of the common good; it is deliberately decietful in its aims and promotes conflict and misery within society in order to achieve them.

There will be no renewal of sacred music and no evangelization without composition of new sacred music. It must participate in the tradition but resonate with people today.

Sacred music should draw worshipers into the contemplative dimension of the liturgy. It appeals to that part in us that hears the ‘still, small, voice' and we develop that faculty through contemplative prayer.

Sacred music must resonate with contemporary worshipers while participating in the principles that go right back to the origins of sacred chant in the Apostolic Churches.

Christopher West talks to David Clayton about popular culture and the New Evangelization and lessons from Bruce Springsteen and Our Lady of Guadalupe: Popular culture doesn't speak to the lowest common denominator, it speaks to the highest common denominator. Like it or loath it, the best rises to the surface. The reason so much of it is bad is that Christians have done such a woefully bad job at participating in contemporary culture. There is a gaping hole for Christians to occupy if we want to and we could learn lessons from the cultural Marxists in this respect!

If we learn to work with the natural structure of the body, our movement will be natural, graceful and dignified; and we will feel healthier and be more active. Are these aims good? Are they Christian?

Art speaks in way that words alone cannot for as well as presenting the image, it is instrinsic to art that it connects and establishes relationships, between the viewer and the prototype, via the image and using the imagination. This stimulates the faculty by which we ‘see' the invisible through the visible and so is essential to the development and retention of faith in God.

If we are to evangelize the culture, how do we persuade Catholics that beauty matters? Jules Miles interviews David Clayton for her Mystery Through Manners website.

‘A Distributist is someone who won't shop at Wallmart and grows chickens in their suburban backyard and thinks everyone else should do the same.' David Clayton and Fr Brad Elliot discuss this economic and cultural ideology.

This is the fifth and final in our series, the Cloister in the Cul-de-Sac. In this one Charlie Deist and I discuss how, once we have established the life of prayer and service to others, we can take active steps to engage with others around us.