Lent is a time to look back and look forward. For students, these last weeks of class mark a frantic time of activity when they nevertheless begin to dream in two directions. What will I do next year? What did I learn this year anyway? Was all that reading and writing worth the effort? Should I turn next to the trades, to a ministry, to a marriage, to more study?

“How are you liking the Divine Comedy so far?” I asked the class. One student said he admired the imagery, another that he couldn’t put the poem down. I felt the same. Over the past two weeks in our Introduction to Catholic Studies course, all of us, I think it fair to say, have been enchanted.

The Christ child isn’t just a nostalgic image: he is the union of the infinite and finite that ought to destroy the fabric of reality, but somehow doesn’t.