Author: Tradition Magazine
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Homeschooling and Catholic Marriage
About the Author Bonnie Landry is a Catholic convert, wife and mama who lives in the little hamlet of Cobble Hill on Vancouver Island. She and her husband Albert have been raising and homeschooling their seven children since 1987. Bonnie hosts the podcast Make Joy Normal: cozy homeschooling; she covers topics that lend themselves to…
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Erasmus on Sexual Temptation
About the Author Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1469 – 1536) was a Dutch humanist scholar of vast learning and expertise. As Europe was rocked by the Protestant Reformation, Erasmus became known as one of Church’s most subtle and conciliatory defenders. Erasmus’ writing output was vast, and he counted among his friends men like the English scholar…
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Plato on Sex and Immortality
About the Author The philosopher Aristocles, better known to us by his nickname Plato (428/7 – 348/7 BC) wrote many dialogues featuring his great teacher, Socrates (c. 470 – 399 BC). Although Socrates was a real person, the words Plato puts in his mouth are often Plato’s own thoughts. In Plato’s Symposium, the fictional character Socrates…
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Saint Augustine on the Birds (and the Bees)
About the Author Saint Augustine, more fully introduced above, had interests beyond engaging with the Manichees as seen earlier. Augustine’s interests in philosophy were wide. Like his Platonist teachers, Augustine recognized nature as a hierarchical structure. In this passage from On Marriage and Concupiscence, Saint Augustine considers what we can learn from the fact that…
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On Loyalty in a Marriage
About the Author Around 1393 a man in Paris whom we remember only as the Goodman of Paris got married. We think he was in his sixties and his wife was in her twenties. The Goodman of Paris set out to tell his young wife what he thought a marriage should be by writing a…
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Saint Augustine on why Marriage is Good
About the Author Saint Augustine (354 – 430 AD) was slowly brought to Christianity via the philosophy of Platonism and the gnostic cult of the Manichees. He tells the whole story of his conversion with introspective honesty in his Confessions. Augustine’s search is a model for many Christians, as were his words, credo ut intelligam, I believe…
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Four Royal Weddings
About the Author Charles A. Coulombe is a historian and author who has written widely on Catholic and secular topics, whose 14 books and many articles range from monarchism to mythology to poetry to rum and well beyond. Recently Charles is the author of Blessed Charles of Austria: A Holy Emperor and His Legacy (TAN Books, 2020).…
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Two are Better than One
About the Author The world-weary author of the book of Ecclesiastes takes time in book 4, verses 9-12 to speak to the importance of friend and, perhaps, a spouse who is a support and a helper. Two are Better than One 9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their…
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Aristotle on the Good Wife
About the Author Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) was a Macedonian who went to Athens to study with the great philosopher Plato. Aristotle studied in Plato’s school, the Academy, until the death of his teacher. Aristotle might have been a natural choice to lead the Academy, but he seems to have been passed over, perhaps…
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Cardinal Jacques de Vitry on Superstitious Wedding Customs
About the Author Jacques de Vitry (1180 – 1240) was a French clergyman. Rising through the hierarchy of the Church, he was involved with the Albigensian crusade, which resulted in stamping out the heresy of the Albigensians in France. The Albigensians, or Cathars, adopted a view similar to that of the Manichees of Saint Augustine’s…