It’s a great honor to have published, on September 8, 2026, in Plough Magazine, an interview on Augustine and friendship with my friend and neighbor, Professor of History (Emeritus) Peter Brown. The article was published in print and is also available online. Brown is the author of a seminal biography of St. Augustine entitled Augustine of Hippo. First published in 1967, this acclaimed work is still widely read and has influenced the academic study of the period of late antiquity.

Although he retired from teaching and rarely travels for public lectures, Peter and I share the same block in Princeton. We have spent hours in each other’s homes in friendly conversation about personal, intellectual and spiritual interests.

When Plough’s editorial team asked me to interview him about Augustine and friendship, I jumped at the chance. To share some of our conversations with a wider public is an honor.

I reviewed notes from the Scala Foundation seminar on Augustine and friendship he led at my home several years ago. I poured through his epilogue to Augustine of Hippo, knowing that the back pages we call epilogues often contain a more mature scholar’s voice reflecting on his own words.

In our interview, I asked Peter to share the mature Augustine’s views on friendship. I also asked him:

• Augustine’s theology is often thought of as stern, focusing on conversion, original sin, the need for grace, and mercy. Do we see anywhere in Augustine’s writings or sermons that friendship among humans can be a channel of grace, an experience of God’s glory? How do ancient understandings of friendship differ from ours?

• How did Augustine’s experience of friendship evolve during his pre-Christian life and his life as a Christian and a bishop?

Finally, I asked Peter for closing words, advice from Augustine for readers today. True to his historical method and rich description of the liturgically rich early church, Peter responded:

“Sometime around 420, not far from the brutal crisis of the slave trade in Hippo, in a world rendered less and less stable by barbarian raids and a church embittered by the Pelagian controversy, we can hear him preaching an evening sermon. As the congregation – monks, nuns, and laity alike – trooped out of the brightly lit basilica into the dark, he reminded them:

I sense that your feelings have been drawn upwards with me to heaven. But now I will put away the copy of the Gospel. You will go home, each your own way. … It was good for us to be bathed in that common Light. It was good that we rejoiced. It was good that we have exulted together. But, as we now walk away from each other, as we go each to our own home, may we not walk away from our shared God.

May it be so!”

Teaching Notes

Whenever we meet up, Peter always asks how my teaching is going at Princeton Theological Seminary. I’m delighted to share that the students in my class on devotion to Mary had their first visit to the Princeton University Art Museum, where the staff kindly arranged a special viewing of images taken from storage that recount the infancy narratives. Gazing at the enormous images, we pondered how Jesus is the center, but Mary is essential.

In my class on Teaching as a Vocation, the archivists at Princeton Theological Seminary opened the semester for us with a fantastic collection of children’s Bibles and illustrated volumes for teaching the faith to children.

As part of the class, students will have the opportunity to guest teach at an after-school program affiliated with Nyansa Classical Community that teaches the classical tradition alongside the African-American intellectual tradition. Nyansa’s leaders have invited my students to contribute new lessons for their curriculum on the book of Exodus. Those lessons will use Biblical exegesis from the church fathers to explore women in the Bible.

The Way of Beauty in Princeton

A large group of students at Princeton Theological Seminary signed up for my 1-credit class, where I share how the Way of Beauty process brings together Psalms, Creativity, and Vocational Discernment. So far, we’ve covered topics like the Christian understanding of happiness and how to deal with anger and resentment. As future leaders in the church and society, the students’ final projects in that class will be to propose where and how they would start their own groups.

As an extracurricular group, our Tuesday morning Way of Beauty Fellowship is meeting again on the Princeton campus, followed by breakfast. If you want to join us, please let me know.

Update on Our Anniversary Campaign

With donations coming in from as far away as Western Australia, I’m delighted to tell you that we met our August goal of raising $15,000, every penny of which was matched by a generous donor!

Your generosity is making these initiatives possible, and I can’t wait to share more with you. My wild dream is to share with as many people as possible the conversations, art, archives, and curricula that I explore with wonderful professors like Peter Brown, my fantastic students, and the amazing student leaders of Scala’s Way of Beauty Fellowship.

Is all of this really possible? Can your dreams come true?

As Peter Brown said, if we have the faith of a man like Augustine, why not put our trust in God and reply: “May it be so!”

I’m incredibly grateful for new and recurring donors who have already contributed to our 10th anniversary campaign. Please take a moment and read what your support will make possible.

New monthly patrons of $100 more will receive a signed copy of my book, When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God.

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A one-time gift of any amount will help us make the most of this great opportunity!

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Forming Artists and Musicians

Partnering with The Vigil Project

At one of our many talks to parents of children in a classical school, one dad of five girls named Andrew Goldstein introduced himself to me and David. As a young man who studied classical music and worked in New York, he wanted to integrate his growing family life with his passion for music. He left the high-flying big city world of dwindling attendance at musically “innovative” but banal events to work in a Catholic parish. His heart longed for more, so he joined the Vigil Project, a group of young Catholic musicians dedicated to restoring great music in churches.

David Clayton, our Director of Strategic Partnerships and Artist-in-Residence, immediately wanted to partner with Andrew. Now, after many meetings, phone calls, and lots of hard work, Scala is proud to partner with Andrew and The Vigil Project. Andrew and David have co-authored a forthcoming book called Musica Domestica, to be published by Word on Fire Press in early 2027.

As Andrew shared with Scala’s board at our July meeting, “In the home, what we see a lot is that Catholics desire to pray with music, but they don’t necessarily know how. There isn’t really a catechesis in the world for how we pray with music.”

This two-volume book and the many training videos and events that are all motivated by questions we have thought hard about, as has Andrew:

“How do we restore a sense of music-making in the home? How do we inspire families to gather around the hearth again, turn the TV off, pick up an instrument, or simply sing together? And how does that, in the long term, overflow into the life of a parish?”

Andrew further explained that, “We help people understand that the parish isn’t the only place we have Catholic music. Many people bemoan what happens at their parish without realizing there’s something they can do in their own home that, in the long run, affects the parish too. Our mission includes what happens in the choir loft, but extends much further than that. We see Catholic music as a holistic problem and a holistic solution. Music extends into the home, into our time in the car, into our time of worship; it impregnates the whole of our integrated being.”

But, one attendee at the board meeting asked, what about people who don’t know how to sing, who have no pitch? Andrew’s thoughtful reply was that for starters, everyone can listen to beautiful music in the home. Making a playlist for the home and the car is one of Andrew’s practical ideas I’ve implemented in my life. Andrew described his ongoing efforts to find leaders in various regions to teach people how to sing using the music in Musica Domestica. You can see and hear more about this incredible book on its website. And you can hear Andrew’s vision for this book on The Vigil Project’s YouTube channel, which has over 50,000 subscribers!

Artists at Stabat Mater Singing the Psalms

Dominic Keim, a young art student at the Stabat Mater Atelier in Tyler, TX, reinforced the idea that a leader with some vocal training can quickly get a group to sing. As a high school student pondering his future, Dominic heard about the wonderful opportunity to study under Robert Puschautz at Stabat Mater and signed up for a rigorous 4-year program.

Dominic beamed the first time David and I walked through the doors of Atelier for David to give guest lectures on cultural and liturgical aspects of artistic formation. An artists’ toolkit, David emphasizes, includes the skills of making art, but to make art that inspires others to love God, one must practice the faith daily.

One particular practice David encourages young creatives of all kinds to take up is chanting the psalms. As Dominic told our board and guests, “Music lifts my soul to God, especially when doing it as a group or as a family. I’m not necessarily a musician, but my family sang prayers in the home, including the psalms.”Not all the other art students were as familiar with chanting the psalms as Dominic, so he offered to lead them, following David’s approach that will soon be published in Musica Domestica.

Whereas too many art schools intentionally pull people away from their faith, Dominic reflected how, “Now that singing the psalms is part of our routine, I feel like I can grow in my faith as well. Everyone at the studio has grown to appreciate how it enriches our experience as art students.”

Way of Beauty Fellowship and Course in Princeton

In the coming months, I’ll co-lead a local Way of Beauty Fellowship in Princeton on Tuesday mornings. If you are local and want to join, let us know. Way of Beauty fellowships are beginning in other areas too, so reach out to find out more. Here is David describing the Way of Beauty process of spiritual formation.

I’m excited that I’ll also teach a 1-credit class at the Princeton Theological Seminary to train future leaders of Way of Beauty fellowship groups. Will there be skepticism at singing in a group? Hesitation? Some inconsistencies? Most likely—but as Dominic’s witness shows, it only takes one or two people to overcome those hurdles and get everyone once again making music and praying together, singing the Bible.

My other two classes, each for 3-credits, will use art and music to introduce students to how a Christian education and a classical education are meant to complement each other. My course “Teaching as a Christian Vocation” includes readings about Christian approaches to education from classical times and modern voices responding to progressive and Marxist approaches to education that elevate the social at the expense of the personal. For the fourth year in a row, we will visit an after-school program that is part of Nyansa Classical Community, which aims to bring classical education to minority and low-income students, teaching and learning alongside them with great texts, art and music.

My course on Ecumenical Devotion to Mary will include immersion in the Princeton University Art Gallery, both objects in the main galleries and many more objects called out of storage just for this class. The art will complement our reading of Scripture, early church reflections on Mary’s place in Christian doctrine and devotional life, and open students up to the symbolic and allegorical readings of our pilgrimage of faith.

Your Support Transforms Hearts and Minds

I’m just days away from a rigorous teaching schedule, and your support now is crucial.

Every gift this month of August, including your first month as a monthly patron, is matched dollar for dollar, up to $15,000. Thanks to all of you have already given. If you haven’t yet given, you still have time!

New monthly patrons of $100 more will receive a signed copy of my book, When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God.

DONATE MONTHLY

A one-time gift of any amount will help us make the most of this great opportunity!

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With gratitude for your readership, friendship, support and prayers,

Margarita Mooney Clayton,

The story below recounts my 23rd birthday on August 25, 1996. It was the closest I came to live combat among varying armed groups that spilt from both the Contras and the Sandinistas after the official conclusion of Nicaragua’s Civil War that raged in the 1980s.

Earlier this month, I read George Orwell’s memoir Homage to Catalonia, his memoir of the Spanish Civil War.Orwell is known better for his books Animal Farm and 1984, fictional stories that critique communism and authoritarianism. But his true stories about Spain inspired me to re-print my personal tale of escaping disorganized violence.

This piece originally appeared on November 2, 2021, on Plough magazine’s blog.

Note: We are more than 50% to our goal of raising $15,000 this month for Scala’s 10th anniversary. Would you help us reach that goal? A gift of any size is appreciated, but anyone who gives more than $100 a month as a recurring gift or $1200 annually will get a signed copy of my book When Mary Calls, which contains more of my memoir combined with six people who have had surprising encounters with Mary.

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2021 Prologue

At the time this story took place in 1996, I was working as a speechwriter, translator, and program officer for the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress based in San José, Costa Rica. The Arias Foundation was founded by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sánchez, the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. As part of my work there, I studied the reintegration into civilian life of former combatants in the Nicaraguan civil war of the 1980s. In 1979, the Sandinistas, a group of armed rebels inspired by the Cuban and Soviet Marxist revolutions, overthrew the corrupt regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Supported by the United States, many Nicaraguans popularly called the Contras fought the Sandinista military, which was supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba.

While president of Costa Rica, Arias proposed to all the presidents of the Central American nations to end the international involvement of the Americans, Soviets, and Cubans that was throwing gas on the fire of armed struggles not only in Nicaragua but also in El Salvador and Guatemala. Arias persuaded every Central American president to commit to ending foreign intervention in their armed conflicts and to hold democratic elections.

The Sandinistas went to the ballot box confident the results would confirm popular support for their revolution. But in 1990, Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega Saavedra lost the presidency to Violeta Chamorro of the National Opposition Union. Six years later, as I made my way to Quilali, Ortega hoped to get power back through elections, whereas former Contras supported a center-right candidate for president. Whoever won the elections, my work at the Arias Foundation aimed to help all Nicaraguans – especially former combatants – peacefully pursue economic development together.

“Bbbbooom!”

Juan pointed his right hand in the air like he was holding an AK-47. It was a Saturday, the day before my twenty-third birthday. Juan promised me that at midnight, he would mark my birthday by taking one of the machine guns from the back of our pickup truck and firing ráfagas .

“No!” I begged him, “please don’t do that!”

When he turned around, I poured my rum and coke into the grass.

Adrenaline pounded through my veins. I lit a cigarette, hoping nicotine would calm my fear.

Earlier that afternoon in 1996, Carlos, an ex-commander of the Nicaraguan Resistance, also known as the Contras, rang the doorbell of my bed-and-breakfast in Managua, Nicaragua. He apologized for picking me up late. We had a seven-hour drive to Quilali ahead of us, a town in Nueva Segovia, on the border with Honduras.

Carlos opened the door of a Ford pickup truck. He introduced me to Juan and Manuel.

“This is Margarita. She works for Oscar Arias in Costa Rica.”

I smiled and hopped in.

Carlos walked around to the other side of the truck and got in the driver’s seat.

“She’s coming with us to see how after the war we have helped our people in Quilali,” he continued.

Carlos told Juan and Manuel we would not be able to arrive by nightfall. They assessed the weapons and ammunition on hand in case we got into a skirmish on the way.

Then Manuel used the butt of his pistol to pop open a beer bottle.

“ Listo. Vamos ,” he said with a grin. Let’s go!

Only minutes before, the owner of the bed-and-breakfast had tried to persuade me not to go. Workers of international development agencies often stayed at her old colonial-style mansion. None of them ever went to Quilali. It was too dangerous.

After graduating from Yale in 1995, I moved to Costa Rica to work at the foundation started by former President Oscar Arias with money he received from the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize. I was there to study the reintegration into civilian life of ex-combatants on both sides of the three civil wars that ravaged Central America in the 1980s – Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Here in Nicaragua, thousands of powerful weapons remained in the hands of former combatants of both sides. Armed bands of former Contras called recontras and former Sandinistas called recompas roamed the countryside, seizing lands and kidnapping people.

My birthday, August 25, 1996, was the third anniversary of that kidnapping. Local and national elections were just a couple of months away. The people of Quilali were gathering to hear from local candidates running for office.

I wanted to see Quilali for myself. And I trusted Carlos, who was invested in creating peace and economic opportunity among former combatants. And I wanted to meet the Jackal (Jose Talavera), the leader of the Contras who had kidnapped the government delegation. The Jackal was reputed to be extremely good-looking. During the war, the daughter of a CIA agent reportedly fell in love with him and nearly stayed in Quilali.

As I walked out the door, the bed-and-breakfast owner shouted, “Don’t fall in love with the Jackal!”

Deserted Managua

As we passed through old colonial Managua, buildings at the central plaza lay in rubble, in ruins ever since the 1973 earthquake. International relief funds had reportedly been stolen by the dictator Anastasio Somoza.

In 1979, the Sandinistas overthrew Somoza. Inspired by the Marxist Cuban and Soviet revolutions, they began a socialist revolution in Nicaragua. Carlos, the Jackal, and many others took up arms with the Contras, supported by US military aid and training. A decade of fighting ensued.

Oscar Arias, who was president of Costa Rica from 1986-1990, proposed that all of the Central American nations hold democratic elections, including the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas never imagined they would lose. But they did. Now, six years later, they hoped to get power back through the ballot box.

Managua hardly looked like a capital city. In 1996, it had few street lights or ATMs. Phone and electricity lines were scarce. Outside the capital, infrastructure just got worse. Although the roads were unpaved and rutted, the green mountains and sunshine were beautiful. I hoped Quilali would look like a phoenix arising from the ashes of war.

Along the way, we drank cheap local beer and rum, mixing it with Coca-Cola. My companions drank eagerly and tossed paper bags with empty bottles out the window. But I sipped very slowly. I needed to stay sober. I needed to stay alive.

At a pit stop for gas and booze, I asked, “Is there a bathroom here?”

“Margarita,” Carlos replied, “we lived in the mountains for ten years.” The great outdoors it was.

Back on our way, the road got rougher. Carlos maneuvered around boulders on the road, honking as we turned sharp, narrow corners. Suddenly, another pickup truck came into sight. In the bed of the truck, a group of men wearing camouflage stood carrying machine guns.

“Who are they?” Carlos asked.

Juan and Manuel grabbed their weapons and shoved rounds of ammo into their pistols.

Slowly, the two trucks with armed ex-combatants bounced towards each other. Just as they met, Carlos smiled and waved. He recognized the driver.

“They used to fight under us,” Carlos explained. “They are our friends.”

My companions smiled, laughed, and put their guns away.

I longed to leave this impromptu party, but where would I go? Carlos had slipped out. Where had he gone?

I kept dumping the rum and cokes into the kitchen sink. Finally Carlos returned, having found me a place to sleep. He escorted me through the dark and knocked on the door of a modest home. A woman in her fifties opened the door and smiled warmly. She showed me her bedroom, which had two twin beds.

I felt safer in a room with another woman. I lay down, not sure I’d sleep much. About an hour later, my hostess’s daughter came home. When she went to climb into her bed, she ripped the covers off and gaped at me.

“ Hola!” I smiled, nervously.

Her mother told her I was their new friend. Her daughter climbed into the twin bed with her mother. We all tried to sleep.

Awaiting Light

The roosters began crowing before dawn.

I waited for my hostess to get out of bed. When I got up, she offered me a fruit and some juice. I longed for coffee but lit a cigarette instead.

In the equivalent of the bathroom, which was a small indoor courtyard with a commode, a well, a sink, and a bucket of water, I splashed cold water on my face and brushed my teeth.

Carlos picked me up, and we arrived in Quilali around midmorning, an hour before the rally. The central plaza was bustling with thousands of campaign workers. Hanging all around the columns of the government buildings were signs for the presidential and local candidates, including one of the Talavera brothers.

I followed Carlos around as he greeted his friends, mostly former commanders of the Contras. He introduced me with explanations such as:

“She works for Oscar Arias.”

“She’s here to today so she can tell Oscar Arias all we have done to help our people.”

“She’s Cuban-American.”

“Her uncle, Xavier Suarez, supported us when he was mayor of Miami.”

“Today is her birthday!”

Carlos told me he needed to go help arrange things, and left me alone. I scanned the crowd. Most of the men were in jeans with t-shirts. Some men wore sombreros . Others wore baseball caps. Women mostly wore long skirts, loose shirts, and sandals.

I was wearing jeans, a sleeveless shirt, and sneakers. I had polished nails, dangling earrings, and two silver rings on my right hand. I carried a backpack with my camera, notebook, and overnight toiletries.

I greeted people around me, saying:

“Hola, cómo estás?”

“Buenos días, que tal?”

Most people offered a quick reply and turned away. They seemed hesitant to hold eye contact.

When I was a child, my mother welcomed Central American and Mexican migrants into our home. The men in particular would greet me politely, take off their sombreros, and keep their eyes to the ground. One day I asked my mom why they wouldn’t sit down with me at our kitchen table when I invited them.

“They are humble people,” she said.

Here in this crowd of people similar to those I met growing up, I felt unworthy of their respectful humility towards me.

But the women who came to our house not only sat at our dinner table, but babysat me and gave me rides to school, like they were part of our family. Perhaps the women here might be more willing to talk to me.

Finally, one young woman approached me. Softly, she asked if I was interested in buying some fruit she had brought that morning from her farm.

“Claro que sí!”

We weaved our way through the crowds as we walked across the plaza. When she told me we had to walk further to get the fruit, I paused. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to go too far. But, not wanting to disappoint her, I followed her. We turned one corner, and then another. We passed a few small shops on the way, but the streets were mostly desolate.

We finally reached a small store, not much bigger than a kiosk. She pointed to a bag of fruit – two large papayas. I handed the shopkeeper doubled what he asked me for – fifty cents instead of twenty-five. He handed me the bag of fruit. When the papaya reached my hands, I suddenly turned and handed them to her. What I spent regularly for a single cigarette at the kiosk on the way to work or a cheap beer at happy hour would probably feed her and her whole family for a day.

I wanted to honor her hard work to cultivate and transport the fruit. Although my family didn’t have much extra income growing up, my mother always had tried to pay our Central American friends something to clean our house or do yardwork, believing that even just a small amount of money would give them a little hope.

The young woman’s eyes met mine. “Muchas gracias,” she beamed.

A Kidnapping Averted?

When we arrived back at the plaza, Carlos ran towards me and grabbed me by the shoulders. “You’ve been gone for fifteen minutes!” he yelled. “Where did you go?”

“I was just buying some fruit from this girl here,” I said.

“I thought you had been kidnapped!” Carlos replied.

He pointed all around the plaza, and I saw at least ten men scurrying around, waving signals at each other. “I told all those men to go find la chelita ” (the light-skinned girl). Carlos waved to them and pointed at me.

I took a deep breath. My new companion had fled to Houston with his family during the conflict. Now, he had returned to live in Nicaragua, hoping to promote peaceful post-war economic development.

We stood a football-field length away from the stage. The Talavera brothers, other ex-commanders of the Contra, and local civic leaders came out. They reminded the crowd of the election six years earlier that had knocked the Sandinistas out of power. Applause broke out.

But the hoped-for goods of peace and development were far from secured, they continued. They would continue to stand up for their people to the central government in Managua. People waved party flags. The candidates and leaders vowed to keep building infrastructure like roads and homes. They pledged to clear the land of landmines, allowing agriculture to flourish once again. Trucks around the plaza honked their horns.

Towards the end of the rally, Carlos escorted me up to the stage and took the microphone. “Please welcome Margarita!” he shouted. “She’s from a Cuban-American family in Miami that never lost hope in us!”

Hurrah! The crowd exploded.

“She lives in Costa Rica and works for ex-president Oscar Arias, who helped us get democratic elections in Nicaragua!”

Hurrah! The crowded cheered.

When the rally ended, campaign workers loaded up on the backs of pickup trucks. Men, women, and children filled old yellow American school buses that had brought them into town. The vehicles drove away honking their horns. People waved banners or their sombreros or baseball caps out the window.

Carmen’s Faith, Joy and Gratitude

Only a few people remained. Carlos introduced me to a woman named Carmen who was dancing to the music. Her face was as bright as the sunshine. She reminded me of Maria, a woman from Honduras who had been my favorite babysitter.

“Carmen helped us during the war,” Carlos explained. “Now we are helping her.”

Only fifteen when the fighting started, Carmen would give water to the Contras who came to her house. The Sandinistas threatened to kill her. She fled to the mountains and lived in a camp with the Contras. By day, she did her best to blend in with the men, learning to use heavy weapons. She did women’s work of harvesting food and cooking in the camp.

“I was a man by day and a woman by night,” she told me. She fell in love with a commander of the Contras. They married secretly. I was too afraid to ask whether he survived the war or if they parted ways after they came out of the mountains. But now she lived only with her son.

Thanks to the Talaveras and other Contras, she now had a new home, with a small plot of land where she cultivated vegetables. She worked with other former Contras to clean up their towns and villages. I couldn’t imagine what she had lived through. Her hope for the future astounded me. She beamed as she told me she trusted in God’s providence. She knew the Virgin Mary would help her.

Carlos then escorted me to lunch. The Jackal walked in. He was as handsome as his reputation. He was wearing a prosthesis to replace a leg he lost when a landmine exploded, though I couldn’t tell this by his gait. He hoped that advances made in infrastructure for roads and homes, tools for farming, clearing landmines, and prostheses for those who lost limbs would continue. But even under auspicious conditions, making farming profitable isn’t easy.

That’s why getting former soldiers to turn in their swords for ploughshares was such hard work. Asking them to hand over their weapons for nothing was never going to work. The millions of dollars of investment in Quilali had been spent wisely – but it wasn’t enough. What little progress had been made was precarious. Many more resources were needed to recover from the destruction caused by the war and prevent a descent into chaotic violence.

Return Through the Dark

Our conversation was cut short by the urgency of getting back to Managua before sundown. As we rolled over the dusty, rugged roads, I pondered how getting out of poverty requires much more than money. People need to unite under a vision, a shared project. Comradery and a shared sense of belonging and place mattered just as much to the economic turnaround in Quilali as the money that came in. Ending the cycle of violence requires much more than collecting guns. Although thousands of men and women had given up their arms, they still needed armed protection from organized crime groups that forcibly occupied land, raped women, or took people hostage for ransom.

Taking baby steps to plant and sell a few papayas requires not just laboring with one’s hands but having hope that small efforts will be met with more help from God.

Sunburned and pensive, I rode back to Managua sandwiched between two men in the backseat of the truck. Juan kept drinking. I slowly inched closer to the sober, friendly, and unarmed young man with a Houston Astros cap.

2021 Postscript

In the twenty-five birthdays I have marked since that day in Quilali, the Sandinista Daniel Ortega, who lost the elections in 1990 and in 1996, was elected president of Nicaragua in 2007, an office he holds to this day. The Talavera brothers remain active in politics.

After more than three years working for the Arias Foundation, in 1998 I enrolled in graduate school in sociology at Princeton University. I spent hours in the basement of Princeton’s Firestone Library voraciously reading as many books as I could about international development and peacemaking. I also threw myself on my knees in the Princeton University chapel, asking God to give me hope that the horrors committed through political violence can be healed.

When the United States, the country that has welcomed so many refugees from war and revolution, erupted into unprecedented violence in recent years, I pondered my experiences in Nicaragua anew. One thing I learned is that the human heart is easily corrupted by the power of the sword. I experienced how violence used for political ends very easily spreads beyond the initial political objectives.

The real miracle of Quilali was the fact that many men and women like Carmen had come down from the mountains, exchanged their swords for ploughs, and settled peacefully into community life. Carmen placed her ultimate hope not in any political leader or economic system, nor on her own actions, but in God.

2026 Postscript

Pieces of my biography were included in my 2026 book When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God. But this story was not included, perhaps because I had already shared it in a form I felt expressed how deeply the people I met touched my heart.

I certainly hope and pray for political solutions for war-torn countries across the world. But even when we are unable to bring about the peace we desire in this world, I trust that the Virgin Mary will help many more people like Carmen hold on to faith in God. My hope is in God.

More than 2,000 years, God ago worked miracles through the humble cooperation of an ordinary woman named Mary. With God’s grace, all of us can try to build community among former adversaries. We can live in joy and gratitude, knowing that our efforts for peace please God, whose miraculous presence is both difficult to comprehend yet incredibly near.

When I started Scala ten years ago this month, I had no idea how to support today’s creators of beautiful art or music. Today, I’m excited to share the latest commission from Scala: composer and conductor Sir James MacMillan has agreed to compose an original “Way of Beauty” anthem for Scala.

The words for this piece of music will drawing on lines from St. Augustine’s reflections on beauty from The Confessions that start with, “Late have I loved you, o Beauty ever ancient, ever new,” and then conclude with prayer we wrote calling on the Holy Spirit for creative inspiration. Our hope is that once Sir James has set the words to music, this new composition will be recorded, shared across all of Scala’s channels, and sung in churches, homes and schools for years to come.

Informed Patrons of the Arts Silence the Culture Wars

Today, I invite you to be a patron of the arts. You can help silence the culture wars by supporting Scala in its tenth anniversary month. Although he’s one of the most renowned composers in both secular and religious circles, when I learned he is open to our input for ideas of what to compose next, I jumped at the chance to collaborate in this unique way. Your donations will allow us collaborate with Sir James on this new piece of music.

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MacMillan has spoken at several of Scala’s public events, and traveled to Princeton to train new young composers in a program Scala helped co-sponsor through the Catholic Sacred Music Project led by Peter Carter. I’ve sung his music at the Aquinas Institute choir that Peter leads. I’ve played his music for my niece who was born disabled and can’t speak. I’ve played again and again last year’s recordings of a choir singing his music during Scala’s conference at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University, like this motet, Mitte manum tuam, referring to John 20:27 when Jesus told the doubting Thomas to put his hands in Jesus’s wounds and have faith.

With your support, we can create more beautiful music like this. When it’s released, you can help us spread it. When completed and released, listeners will be directed to enjoy his music as much as I and millions of others already have. His beautiful compositions will drown out the banal, lifting hearts and minds to high ideals and new hope.

Every gift this month of August, including your first month as a monthly patron, is matched dollar for dollar, up to $15,000. Thanks to all of you have already given. If you haven’t yet given, you still have time! New monthly patrons of $100 more will receive a signed copy of my book, When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God.

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Sir James has risen to worldwide renown by writing music for the secular world, such as concert halls, opera houses, and theaters. He’s also a devout Catholic from an impoverished area of Scotland who has never left his love of God through the liturgy behind. That combination of faith and artistic creativity once stymied his secular admirers.

From Skeptical to Curious to Fascinated

Listeners have grown tired of hearing banal forms of music that fail to inspire or attract listeners. Thanks to composers Sir James, the tide is shifting. As MacMillan told Scala’s board recently:

“When I was studying music in a largely secular environment, many expected religion to recede in the world of culture and the arts. However, classical music has proved that the search for the sacred did not go away in modernity.”

Sir James described a transformation underway: those who were once skeptical about theology have become curious about the Bible stories and Christian teachings. Rather than mocking the difficult parts of Christian, more and more people are interested in ideas like the message that our salvation comes in part through redemptive suffering.

To illustrate this shift, MacMillan pointed out how last year, the BBC commissioned a six-part series for its popular program on Radio 3, Music Matters, to explore the book of Genesis and the creation story through music. The BBC gave him “carte blanche” to bring in voices of faith for the show, including my own.

Other guests included the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

“Sometimes, for the first time,” Sir James said, “people are fascinated by what we have to bring to the conversation.”

Once begun, the journey from skeptical to curious and then fascinated keeps going.

When you give to Scala this month, you are not just supporting an idea. You are commissioning a new work of sacred music into existence, one that thousands of people will hear, sing, and be moved by long after this campaign ends.

Become a monthly patron at $100 or more (or $1,200 annually), and you’ll receive a signed copy of my book When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God — matched dollar for dollar this month.

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A one-time gift of any amount will help us make the most of this great opportunity!

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This is not the only way Scala is helping to end the culture wars. Soon, I’ll introduce you to Andrew Goldstein of the Vigil Project, who is working with Scala to bring great music back into families and churches. You will also meet Dominic, who, thanks to Scala’s outreach, became an art student at the Stabat Mater Atelier in Texas, and learned to sing the psalms in a group at his art school from my husband David.

Our efforts will surely help find and prepare the next world-renowned artist like a new Sir James MacMillan or even a new Michaelangelo.

With gratitude, Margarita

(pictured here with Sir James MacMillan, who also sends you his gratitude!)

As Scala celebrates its 10th anniversary in August 2026, I wanted to share with you my opening remarks at our recent board meeting. Don’t miss the chance to support our work—every gift this month to Scala will be matched up to $15,000!

Anyone who becomes a monthly patron by donating $100 a month (or $1,200 annually) will get a signed copy of my book When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God. Thanks to all of you who have already given. If you haven’t yet given, you still have time!

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No More Desecration

Are more people hungry for beauty that transcends divisive social categories? Carl Trueman, a professor at Grove City College and personal friend, has argued that the West did not go through secularization but rather desecration.

“The Icons are Coming Alive Again,” was the title of Mary Harrington’s review of my book When Mary Calls. This title captures a larger shift that has happened over the last five years. People perhaps have always talked about cultural renewal, but now they are realizing that without the divine presence flowing through the beauty of that recreated culture, our human nature could be damaged and our hearts turned away from the common good.

Could the tide be turning? Not long ago, Mary Harrington, whom I had the chance to sit down with several times during my time in the UK, never would have guessed she would be writing about Mary, culture, and beauty. She was a secular progressive feminist philosopher. Her wake-up call came when she became a mother. She realized there was something missing. As a result, she began to explore Christianity, tradition, and true beauty, and shares her insights with a large readership.

If Trueman is correct that the symbols of Christianity which undergirded Western Civilization have been targeted for destruction or ridicule, then Harrington was right to pick up on the message of When Mary Calls: cultural renewal must be incarnational—fully human (as Mary was) and uniting us to the divine (as Jesus came to do, and which the Church continues).

I used to fear that Scala would be labeled as somehow un-academic because we promote beauty. But around the US, UK, and elsewhere, families and schools are increasingly recognizing that students need integral formation of the imagination and the intellect. We cannot build civilization without the images that speak to the heart of the joy of living in the truth. Even when evil seems to be growing, beauty inspires people with the courage to do good.

Yet significant hurdles remain. Ugliness and misery run rampant on many college campuses. Too many hearts are drowning in despair, gasping for the air that beauty alone can give.

WILL YOU HELP US SPREAD HOPE?

Thanks to the support of our donors over the last ten years, we have consistently shared this message that beauty is as essential in education and human formation as truth and virtue. Ten years ago, I was passionate to start Scala because I realized that most young people had never heard the message that beauty, creativity, and practicing an artistic talent can be integrated with their intellectual life. They thought education was about choosing a profession, rather than pursuing a vocation and integral formation.

What a surprise was in store for me when just over five years ago, on July 4th, 2021, I met my husband, David Clayton. Just over a year later, on July 23, 2022, we were married.

Because of his decades of work building a network of culture creators who want to evangelize culture, Scala has been able to connect grassroots educators, elite artists and musicians, and intellectuals.

For example, Robert Puschautz, the Executive Director and Founder of Stabat Mater Foundation and Atelier School of Fine Art (stabatmater.org) in Tyler, Texas, traveled to Princeton for Scala’s 2023 conference on Art, the Sacred and the Common Good. Having made a personal connection with David and me at that event, we began to publicize his excellent work and visited his art school several times. Robert has said:

“Through his writing and personal advice over the years, David Clayton has influenced my approach to painting and teaching art in the Catholic tradition. He has visited our studio in Tyler, Texas, a number of times and has been incredibly generous with his time in offering his valuable insights to our students during his residencies. It is largely due to his work publicizing our art program among Catholics across America that we acquired many of our dedicated students. We are delighted to endorse David’s work as part of both Scala Foundation and Pontifex University.“

Growing numbers of people who come to ask us: How do we form the culture?

Our answer is that, as with Robert and the Stabat Mater Atelier, we connect elite artists, patrons of the arts like you, and grassroots educators.

Scala’s accomplishments in its first ten years have set us up to expand our network in the coming 10 years. We expect exponential growth in the numbers we reach through our partnerships with art schools, programs for musicians, classical schools, and churches. Much of Scala’s work is personal and intensive. And it is through those close personal relationships that we can build a powerful network.

We need your support to work on several fronts:

• Ongoing intensive mentorship of the next generation of culture-creators who want to preserve Western civilization and defend its most treasured values;

• Expand work to form patrons who will fund the training of culture creators and new works of art, music and architecture to be commissioned;

• Respond to the grassroots demand for beauty in schools, churches, and families through our publications and videos that reach hundreds of thousands;

• Launch new Way of Beauty fellowships in schools and churches that change lives.

Beauty Transcends Divisions

Across the political and religious spectrum is the growing awareness that ‘cheap’ and ‘false’ beauty does not fulfill the human heart and often leads to misery. The approach we take to all our work is informed by our Catholic faith, but the people who attend our events are from a variety of backgrounds: Christians of various denominations and seekers. All people who are attracted by our vision of beauty come away transformed. Connecting individuals across networks then injects new resources into existing communities.

Restoring beauty is a generational project that goes beyond any election cycle and transcends all people. Our goal is to reform the culture, one personal relationship and one heart at a time requires. We seek collaborators with an entrepreneurial mindset to counter the narrow-minded ideology that reigns in too many circles. With your help, we can build the networks that gather together the growing number of creatives who love tradition, have faith, and aim to renew Western culture.

Will you support Scala’s mission today? Every gift to Scala in August will be matched up to $15,000!

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With gratitude,

Margarita Mooney Clayton, Executive Director, The Scala Foundation

PS-If you become a monthly patron of Scala at $100 or more a month, or donate $1200 annually, I’d be delighted to send you a signed copy of my book When Mary Calls!

I can’t believe it—Scala is turning 10 this month! We are launching our next decade with a matching gift: every gift given this August — including your first month as a monthly patron — will be matched up to $15,000.

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Why I started Scala in 2016

During my nearly three decades as a student or professor in higher education, I’ve witnessed first-hand how students’ misery was deeply connected to the desecration of tradition and faith. It’s not merely that the intellectual giants of the Western tradition have been forgotten. Too often in education, ideals around family and nation are mocked. Mindless activism replaced creativity, the true engine of a free and joyful society.

Scala’s approach is invitational, not confrontational. We help people connect the hunger they have for beauty to the love of God.

When I met my husband David, we dreamed of finding a way of sharing the intellectual, spiritual, and artistic practices David wrote about in his book The Way of Beauty. Thanks to our patrons, our dreams are becoming reality.

Scala’s work has benefited from so many like you who support us in reversing cultural decline we all can see.

Patrons Are Part of the Creative Process

Donors to Scala do more than give money. They are patrons of the creative process that underlies all we do. Whether you are a reader of this magazine, have attended a conference, or have read our books and articles, or watched our videos, we invite you to help us spread The Way of Beauty.

For example, Daniel Gorenburg, a former student of mine at Princeton Theological Seminary who also participated in Scala’s summer program, is now Assistant Pastor at Providence Presbyterian Church in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and is today a Scala patron. He grew up in California, joined a Christian church in high school, and studied philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley.

As Daniel said:

“Scala was my first serious exposure to Christian philosophical anthropology. The more I remain engaged with Scala the more I am equipped, as a minister, to engage the various perspectives that confuse or distort the human being as made in the image of God.”

When one person like Daniel shares what he has learned with others, the chain of lovers of beauty and truth spreads goodness much faster than any ideology can spread misery. I vividly recall during our summer seminar at Portsmouth Abbey, Rhode Island, how Daniel took some of the younger students under his wing, praying with them after breakfast and encouraging them in the often difficult texts we read.

Now, as a recurring donor, Daniel helps us keep expanding our network of students, artists and families. Would you join Daniel as a patron of the Way of Beauty? Patrons also learn from our network of culture creators how to spread the joy that comes from an encounter with the divine through beauty.

“The Culture Wars Go Silent”

Now is the time to support Scala. The tide is turning; important seeds have been sown that are flowering, and a beautiful culture is once again re-emerging. Take, for example, a frequent Scala collaborator, composer Sir James MacMillan. Born in 1959 in an impoverished Catholic family in Scotland, he has risen to world prominence as a composer and conductor.

He was one of our guests at Scala’s 10th anniversary board meeting. He shared how his faith, once mocked by many in the secular music world, is now sparking curiosity.

Soon, I’ll share more from MacMillan and two other special guests, a second musician, Andrew Goldstein of the Vigil Project, and Dominic Keim, an art student at the Stabat Mater Atelier in Texas. They shared with our board and supporters about how partnering with Scala has amplified their work in education, church life, and the arts.

Will You Help Spread The Way of Beauty?

But today, I simply want to ask: will you join us, as a monthly patron, in this next decade of Scala?

If you become a monthly patron at $100 or more (or $1,200 annually), your first month’s gift will be matched dollar for dollar! And you’ll receive a signed copy of my recent book, When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God, whose hopeful message has reached hundreds of thousands who have heard me interviewed.

The book continues to receive attention in unexpected places. For example, MacMillan recently introduced me to journalist and music lover Damian Thompson of The Spectator-UK, who interviewed me in July for his podcast “Holy Smokes”, an apt title for exploring the enduring presence of the sacred in highly secular England.

If you can’t commit to a recurring gift, a one-time gift of any amount still matters enormously — and it will be doubled if you give this month.

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Words simply can’t say how much I appreciate your support, friendship, prayers and encouragement. I hope our mission graces your life.

Gratefully,

Margarita

P.S. This match is only available in the month of August. Thank you for supporting our mission to renew culture!

As I approach my fourth wedding anniversary with David Clayton, I wanted to share my reflections on having changed my last name. My family still uses at least seven nicknames for me, and I have a total of three last names with which I identify strongly. Each of those names reflects the only unique me who rejoices in all the parts of my identity.

In 1998, working on my graduate school application essays, one them asked me to reflect on how I would contribute to diversity. I wrote,

“My father is Irish-American from New York. My mother was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. I’ve never quite known where I fit into the diversity conversation. But as I’ve spent the last three years living, working and traveling around Latin America, my love for Latin music, food and culture is burning inside of me.”

I was born in Frederick, MD, and given the name of Margaret Ann Mooney. My mom insisted she wanted her four kids to have names that sounded virtually the same in Spanish or English. But she wanted my legal name to be Margaret because it is easier to pronounce than a name like hers—Eulalia. I always knew I was named after my aunt Margarita, and that older family members were also Margarita.

But whether speaking to me in English or Spanish, my mom mostly called me “mami”—a colloquial Spanish way of addressing your children by the name children should call their parents. My father pronounced my name with his distinctive New York ‘r’—Mahrghret.

For the first 21 years of my life, Margaret was the name most people called me at school—but I never liked it. But in my large Cuban family—my mom is one of 14 children and I have more than 50 first cousins on her side of the family—I was often called Maggy or Margarita.

Growing up, everyone knew my mom so I didn’t have to explain that, despite having an American name, I have Hispanic heritage. But when I went to college at Yale, “Where are you from?” and “What are you?” were common topics of conversation. I wanted to be loyal to two heritages. Saying I was half Cuban and half American just didn’t sound right.

My presence and my voice—my writing and speaking—has always been a blend of my two heritages. Growing up, I learned to speak Spanish in conversations at home and with my Cuban relatives and many Latin American friends. But I also learned Spanish through folk songs my mom played on the guitar (like Guantamera) and colloquial sayings she shouted like (No me diiiigas).

I loved Spanish classes in school and exceled in AP Spanish literature my senior year of high school, where I was captivated by the magical realism of the Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges and the Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. At Yale, I relished my upper-level Spanish literature classes where we read (in the original Spanish) El Cantar del Mio Cid and Don Quixote de la Mancha.

After graduating from Yale, I moved to Costa Rica in 1995 to work for Oscar Arias Sanchez, a former president of Costa Rica. I embraced the opportunity to go by Margarita publicly and with friends. And, as is the custom in Latin America, I used two last names—my father’s and my mother’s. Margarita Mooney Suarez became my professional name. When my first niece was born while I was living in Costa Rica, I wrote to my brother than I wanted her to call me, “Tia Maggy” (tia means aunt in Spanish).

Living in Costa Rica, it was clear that my customs and habits had been shaped by the fact that I was born and raised in the United States, that I had studied in the United States and that I was fluent in English. But I was also clearly an insider to Latin American culture—it was in my blood, in my Cuban colloquial Spanish, and in my memory.

In Latin America, no one ever asked me if my parents named me after a drink.

Rather, people said things like, “Oh, my first girlfriend was Margarita. My grandmother is Margarita.” Or, they would quote the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío, like, “Margarita, está linda la mar.”

Identity, voice, and loyalty were united.

Pictured here are 13 of the 14 Suarez siblings gathered with their parents on the steps of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., about a decade after moving to the United States in the 1960s.

When I moved back to the United States in 1998 for graduate school at Princeton, I changed my legal name from Margaret to Margarita, becoming Margarita Ann Mooney. I never rejected my Irish-American heritage but simply wanted my legal name to reflect my complex, blended identity and my experiences living in Latin America.

But at Princeton, I stopped using two last names—Mooney and Suarez. I returned back to only using Mooney simply because it is not the custom in the United States to use two last names unless one gets married.

But, more than 20 years later, I’ve decided to go back to using both my father’s and my mother’s last names as my professional byline. In my writing and speaking, I’m beginning to share more about how my voice has been shaped by my loyalty to multiple traditions.

For example, in an article in Plough magazine entitled Rafagas (machine gun fire), I reflect on my work with ex-combatants of the civil wars in Central America. I called a recent talk I gave to young leaders Ganas (a Spanish word loosely translated as desire). In that talk, I shared how even though I’ve been under-prepared or under-qualified for professional opportunities I desired, I always throw myself into everything with passion.

In 2021, I spoke in Spanish via Zoom to a group of university students in Peru about the importance of the life of the mind in a time of crisis. To another group of young leaders across the globe who believe in freedom, I reflected on my seven trips to Cuba between 1994-2007. Speaking to a group of high school students in the summer of 2021, a young Mexican-American woman asked me how I understood my own femininity drawing on two cultures with often different expectations for women.

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The fact that I have gone by Margaret Mooney, Maggy Mooney, Margarita Mooney and Margarita Mooney Suarez just means that many of us at times us different versions of our name because it seems to fit best. My oldest niece—who is now 25—still calls me “Tia Maggy,” and my youngest niece, who is 6, calls me “Titi” (short for Tia Margarita). Going by different names doesn’t change my fundamental identity. Different versions of our name signify affection, loyalty and identity.

Part of my identity is precisely that I have gone by different names in different contexts. The question I got at Yale—“What are you?”—defies a simple answer. My best answer is simply: “I’m me. Listen to my story.”

Yet I know that names, labels and what box you check matters. I may fit into more than one box, use more than one version of my name, and be identified with different labels, but I am just one person.

I wrote this essay to explain why I now will go by Margarita Mooney Suarez in my career. By emphasizing my Hispanic heritage in my name, I am not denying that my father is Irish-American, or that I was born in a small town in Maryland. Compared to someone my age raised in Cuba, I can’t deny the difference my American father and my American citizenship made in my education and culture.

As I wrote in the diversity essay I submitted for graduate school applications in in 1998, “I feel both like an alien and a sister to the people I’ve met in Latin America.” But that feeling of sisterhood and alienation I wrote about, an experience of closeness that is also a recognition of difference from my Latin American brothers and sisters, is no longer a source of confusion or inner conflict for me. My umbligo—my belly button, my core, has not changed.

My two parents each gave me incredible gifts from which to do the work I do and be who I am. The name Margarita Mooney Suarez fits both who I was born as—American and Cuban—and who I’ve come to be—an American-raised, Irish-American, Cuban-American woman who has lived, worked and traveled extensively in Latin America.

My life has only grown in complexity and diversity. I have written a book about Haiti, I have studied mental illness and addiction in small towns across the US, and I have grappled with existential questions raised by suffering and death. Whatever name I have used, I hope what I’ve shared transcends my own experiences and speaks to the universal search for beauty and wisdom.

I have no problem with anyone calling me by the legal name I was given at birth—Margaret Mooney—especially if that’s what I went by when they knew me. At times for convenience or to be recognized as the author of more than two decades of publications as Margarita Mooney, I may only use one surname. I hope my family members still call me Maggy, Tia Maggy, Tia Margarita, and Titi. I used to be embarrassed that my mother called me mami—but now I own it.

But in a time when I want my voice to spring from my heart and reach outside the academy, Margarita Mooney Suarez will be my professional byline. Margarita Mooney Suarez sounds poetic to my ears. It resonates with my heart and reveals my roots.

When people see, read and hear more from Margarita Mooney Suarez, I hope my voice is heard as speaking from the heart from which springs the words and ideas I want to share.

Marriage and Identity: Continuity and a New Beginning as Margarita Mooney Clayton

Who knew that at the very same time I’d write about adding a second last name to my identity to acknowledge my mother and my Cuban heritage in July 2021, I’d meet the man I was going to marry, David Clayton.

Although I had used Margarita Mooney Suarez when I was in my 20s and living in Latin America, it was hard to walk around the US with two last names. Who is Suarez? Your husband? I was often asked. I was often alphabetized by Suarez rather than Mooney on event registrations or plane reservations. Often, Mooney was just dropped and I was just Margarita Suarez (that’s my aunt, but not me).

So, I dropped Suarez to avoid confusion. I never dropped my loyalty to my Cuban heritage, but I thought I’d soon be married and wanted to keep room for my husband’s last name. Who knew that it would take two decades to find a man I loved enough to marry and take his last name?

If I lived in Latin America, I’d be Margarita Mooney Suarez de Clayton, and no one would be confused. Everyone would know that Margarita Mooney, Margarita Mooney Suarez, and Margarita Mooney Suarez de Clayton or just Margarita de Clayton are the same person.

My English husband David is confused by the fact that I have 8 nicknames in my family. No one else seems to be confused. Everyone knows that Maggy, Margarita, Margaret, Tia Maggy, Tia Margarita, Titi, Mamita, and Mami are all the same person—me.

But, in the US, I’ve decided to follow the American custom and legally become Mrs. Clayton. As David and I launch into some professional projects together, we want people to know we are man and wife, as signified by the same last name. Getting married year a year shy of turning 50, it always tempting to see marriage as negotiating 50-50 compromises. But I want name to signify that in my marriage, I’m going all in--100%.

So I’m keeping Mooney—my father’s last name, the name I’ve always used for publications, as part of legal last name, although I’ve had a different second last name (first Suarez and now Clayton).

The 100% me is now legally Margarita Mooney Clayton. But, as we do in my family, you can call me whatever name you feel is most affectionate.

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Damian was eager to interview me, as my book shows that devotion to Mary is spreading among Protestants in England. One thing he mentioned was that England’s most important shrine to Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham, which was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1583 as part of the much larger suppression of Catholic practices in England during the English Reformation, was later restored by Protestants—the Anglicans.

Catholics helped restore the shrine as well, which is noted in this sign I had seen just hours earlier when I visited Westminster Cathedral, the Roman Catholic Cathedral of London. (It bears a similar name to Westminster Abbey, which is Anglican).

The sign in Westminster Cathedral reads:

“When England goes back to Walsingham,
Our Lady will come back to England.” — Prophecy of Pope Leo XIII when he signed the rescript for the restoration of Our Lady of Walsingham’s Shrine in 1897.

Is this prophecy coming true?

I certainly see a return to Catholicism in England, and to devotion to Mary among Protestants and Catholics there.

For example, before 12:30 Mass at Westminster Cathedral in London yesterday, I noticed young men holding rosaries as they waited to have their confession heard by a priest. Who would have thought even five years ago so many young men would be lining up for confession in England?

During Mass, people of all ages and backgrounds stood, sat, knelt and prayed together. We then knelt together for Eucharistic adoration, followed by an organ concert.

After all that, I slowly walked around, looking at all the mosaics and paintings of Christ, Mary and the saints in the many side chapels. One elderly woman caught my attention. In each side chapel, she touched the statues and prayed softly but audibly.

The rebirth of faith in England includes the surprising return of once-proscribed practices that so many people at Westminster Cathedral were doing: praying the rosary, kissing statues, and lighting candles. Our Lady’s restoration to her shrine in England is indeed a sign of a much larger renaissance of faith.

Damian and I also discussed the surprising trend of young Protestants praying the rosary. The rosary is a Catholic devotion to Mary, which consists of long meditation on Scripture in which, either individually or in groups, people say one Our Father, ten Hail Marys, and the Glory Be.

When Damian asked me to explain why practices like the rosary are returning—not just among Catholics but also among Protestants—I confessed that I was surprised when I first heard about it. But reflected that it might be connected to the fact that Christian religious rituals and practices are not empty; they are ways we use our bodies to live out the mysteries we proclaim.

Christians don’t find God apart from the material world or sensory experiences—we are called to transform it through faith. What we do with our bodies, how we engage with the material world, is filled with symbolic meaning; symbolic meanings help us appreciate the mysteries of faith.

Yesterday after Mass, my heart filled with prayer intentions, people I had promised to pray for. So I lit five candles. Then I followed the elderly lady from the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham to a statue of the Pieta, that is, Mary holding Christ’s crucified body.

The elderly woman devoutly placed her hand on Christ’s wounded hand. She said a prayer.

Next, I approached the statue. One by one, I kissed the five wounds of Christ—both hands, both feet, and his pierced side. I gazed at his face and his mother Mary’s face.

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My worries and anxious petitions melted into a joyous hope. There’s no glory without the cross. Our bodies may not evade illness or death, but we have hope in our rebirth. That’s why I don’t equate the emotional life with the spiritual life. When our emotions go up and down, we can cling to rituals, ask for greater faith, trusting that what we do with our hands, feet, eyes, and breath can be purified so we can enjoy a clearer vision of God at work in all things.

Back by the statue of Mary, I paused for a long time reading this explanation of the sculpture of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The Westminster Cathedral Statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was commissioned by Cardinal Griffin in the Marian Year of 1954. It was sculpted by Pius Dapre. The Cardinal is quoted as saying when this statue arrived … “The Faith in England will flourish, when the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham is flourishing.”

Is the faith in England flourishing? Perhaps not as it once was. But there is an urgency, a heartfelt need for the faith in England, and as journalist Mary Harrington noted in her review of my book, her own need for faith included a hunger for Mary as a spiritual mother.

Just as statues of Mary are coming out of hiding, more people like composer and conductor Sir James MacMillan, whom I talked with Damian about yesterday, are speaking publicly about the faith. All of these things led my husband David to write his reflections as an artist about why devotion to Mary is crucial to preserving the faith. This piece, a follow-up to David’s earlier piece about Mary Harrington’s review of my book, focused on the first seven ecumenical councils and addressed (among other things), the identity of Christ, the Trinity, the question of images in worship, and Mary.

The Way of Beauty

Why Devotion to Mary Is Necessary if We Are to Preserve the Faith and Evangelize the Culture

In a recent posting I wrote about Mary Harrington’s review of my wife Margarita’s new book, When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God and in particular about the connection she drew between the purging of images at the Reformation and the long decline of Marian devotion that followed. Harrington sensed that the two belonged together…

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3 months ago · 15 likes · 1 comment · David Clayton

Now is a moment when people are open to learning about the meanings of art that depicts Mary. The symbolism of the statue at Westminster Cathedral, among other things, is meant to help us recall that Mary is called the New Eve:

For many years the statue remained hidden and almost unknown in the Cathedral Crypt. It has now been restored and a new lily sculpted to replace the original, lost in the mists of time. There is an old tradition that the Lily sprang from the repentant tears of Eve as she went forth from paradise. Here Mary is seen as the New Eve, the Mother of Life, who bore the FRUIT who redeemed us. An ancient hymn spoke of Mary as: “Hail Mary fairest flower, O Lily glistening white and stainless…”

As Pope Benedict XVI wrote, Mary is the good soil of faith. To look at her face is to pause, and to let God work in our hearts. So explains the sign:

This statue of Our Lady of Walsingham has a particularly beautiful face which radiates contemplative beauty, sorrow, strength, compassion and solace. Just to kneel before this statue is to experience the peace and fragrance of the Virgin.

The child Jesus sits in majesty and communion with His Mother. A sense of the future silent, suffering, interior martyrdom of the Blessed Virgin Mary pervades, indicative of the fertile soil which enabled Mary to stand with Jesus at Calvary, the moment when Jesus bestowed upon her, for all generations, her Divine & universal Motherhood.

The statue is a mini-Catechesis, a poetic meditation on our redemption. So continues the explanatory sign:

Our Lady of Walsingham is the Seat of Wisdom and sits upon a throne. She is amidst two pillars which represent the Church as the gate of Heaven; the seven rings on these pillars signify the seven Sacraments and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; the arched back of the throne represents the rainbow, the sign of the Covenant between God and His people; the three fold lily symbolises virginity, purity, sovereignty, sign of resplendent beauty and testifies that Our Lady remained the Blessed Virgin before, during and after the birth of the Saviour Jesus Christ; a toadstone symbolising evil is beneath her feet, showing that she crushes satan and all his empty works; and finally she wears a Saxon Crown representing her Queenship. For Mary is Queen of Heaven and as Our Lady of Walsingham, the spiritual Queen of England.

Following my interview at the Spectator’s office, I strolled past Buckingham Palace and caught a bus back to Oxford, literally arriving at kickoff time for the World Cup semifinal match between England and Argentina. Perhaps these days the World Cup is one place where we see nations unite across political, cultural and class divides.

At pubs all around England, voices, bodies and hearts were united in celebration when England scored the first goal. But an hour later, England fans accepted a 2-1 defeat.

Analogies between sport and religion are often overplayed. But the rituals of sports watching simply remind us that rituals bind us together. Religious rituals in particular bind together the living and the dead into a grand narrative.

Mary’s presence on English soil is made real by the blood of martyrs, by the pilgrims to Walsingham of all faith backgrounds, and by my little candles, prayers and kisses. Mary’s motherhood symbolizes a love that endures beyond any political cycle, sports season, or, in fact, beyond this life.

As the sign next to the statue concludes:

The presence of Our Lady of Walsingham in Westminster Cathedral invites us all to meditate on the missionary role of Our Lady of Walsingham for the re-evangelisation and conversion of England. Our Lady’s Shrine is at a pivotal moment in its history of restoration and revival. Your prayer and help is needed. We can expect a great return to the Faith of our Fathers - and with this in mind - we need to prepare. This will take great Faith and Trust in Our Lord Jesus Christ and in the powerful Intercession of our beloved Lady of Walsingham.

“O England, great cause have you to be glad compared to the Promised Land, for you are graced to stand in that degree, through the glorious Lady’s intercession, to be called in every realm and region the Holy Land, Our Lady’s Dowry; thus are you called from all antiquity.” --Walsingham Ballad published by Richard Pynson, printer to Henry VII.

The Catholic martyrs named in Our Lady’s Chapel at Westminster Cathedral believed in God so much that they walked their own Calvary, looking to Our Lady for comfort. I looked up above at the names of some of the martyrs commemorated in this side chapel. I don’t recognize John Jones, Nicholas Owen or most of the other names.

But Saint Edmund Campion was a Jesuit who publicly attempted to persuade Anglicans, including students at his alma mater of Oxford University, to return to the Roman Catholic Church. He was convicted of treason, imprisoned, and killed in 1581 by being hanged, drawn, and quartered. Today’s home for Jesuits in Oxford, Campion Hall, is named for him, and the undergraduate Catholic ministry the Jesuits run in Oxford is overflowing with new young Catholics.

Margaret Barker, a Methodist minister, theologian and Old Testament scholar in England, has written in her excellent book The Mother of the Lord.

Damian asked me about doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants. I explained to him the appendix of my book summarizes Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox writings on Mary. There is more common ground among Christians than many imagine on doctrinal issues. So, let us not make Mary a barrier to Christian faith, but a source of unity, allowing her love to penetrate our hearts and showing her true devotion.

As of today, July 2, 2026, readers in the UK can see master iconographer Aidan Hart’s icon of the Nativity in my book When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God, that is now available for purchase in the UK from Blackwell’s, Waterstones, or Amazon UK.

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Mary as the Throne of God

Sacred art not only depicts a historical event but also demonstrates the union of two natures in Christ—the hypostasis. How does an artist like Aidan portray this event both as any other birth that took place in a particular time and place, and as recounted in Scripture, and as one that has a unique spiritual significance, unlike any other historical birth?

In this icon, Mary is presented both as a mother and as the Throne of God, or the Gatekeeper. For Aidan, referring to Mary as the throne of God is not merely an act of exalting her; it is an acknowledgment of God’s love for humankind. This imagery of Mary as the Throne of God traces back to Old Testament prefigurations. For example, the throne in Solomon’s temple was adorned with imagery suggesting divine presence. Mary fulfills and transcends these archetypes; she is not just a container or resting place for divine power, but a living, active throne that collaborates with divine purpose.

This icon of the Nativity by Aidan illustrates how allegorical titles of Mary help reveal the meaning of her presence at key moments in the New Testament and guide us to contemplate the great mystery of the birth of Christ. Aidan insists that he makes icons of the Nativity to help us experience this event again as if we were present at the birth of Christ. Icons of the Nativity invite us to reflect on the paradox of the Incarnation: the union of opposites—infinite becoming finite.

Thus, the mountain and the cave symbolize the Virgin Birth, representing both the divinity and humanity of Christ. The mountain symbolizes Mary, while the cave represents her womb. Our gaze rises to the heavens, yet we also encounter Christ in the cave. The old man in front of Joseph is the prophet Isaiah, reminding Joseph that the virgin birth of Christ fulfills a prophecy concerning his divinity.

Our eyes are naturally drawn to Mary, as she is the largest figure. However, it is not Mary herself who is the most important person in this icon; it is Christ. Mary’s position at the center of this image serves to remind us that her natural motherhood is essential to the union of the two natures—divine and human—in Christ.

The icon also visually represents Mary as the throne of God—she physically supports and presents Christ to the world, just as a throne elevates a ruler to be seen by their kingdom. Yet, unlike an ordinary throne, Mary is not passive; she actively contemplates the mystery before her. This paradox—that Mary is both nurturing Christ as his mother and worshiping him as her God—invites us to reflect on our own relationship with the divine.

The Gospel of Luke tells us that Mary wrapped the baby Jesus in swaddling clothes. Lest we wrap Jesus in shiny wrapping paper and forget that he came to die for our sins, this icon depicts the swaddling clothes as a linen shroud and places Christ in a cave in the rock that is a tomb as well as a place of birth. Thus, we contemplate the birth of Christ alongside a foreshadowing of his painful death and burial.

The throne imagery honors both Mary’s physical role in the Incarnation—her womb physically contained God—and her humble obedience, returning all praise for her back to God. Titles like Throne of God are meant to convey the profound intimacy between Christ and Mary, and, because of her humble obedience to bear God in the world, that a similar intimacy is possible between Christ and us.

When we elevate Mary to a position on a throne, we are not making her into a goddess: rather, we are acknowledging the great mystery that the infinite became finite in her womb. Just as Mary shared an intimate bond with her son while remaining herself fully human, we are transformed through grace to partake of the divine life of the Trinity.

Allegorical Readings of Scripture

I included Aidan’s conversion story and his work as iconographer in my book because many Christians—not only Protestants but also many Catholics like myself (before I met my husband David)—know very little about the tradition of allegorical readings of Scripture through images.

As a teenager growing up in New Zealand, Aidan discovered the Bible on his own, and then was mentored by a Baptist pastor and members of his congregation. He memorized large sections of Scripture. When Aidan learned of the Orthodox tradition of making icons to express the allegorical readings of Scripture, his love for the word of God deepened.

He became Greek Orthodox, and has made art for Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches in at least 25 countries. My husband David once assisted Aidan paint frescoes in a private chapel belonging to then-Prince Charles of England.

At Scala’s 2023 conference at Princeton Theological Seminary, Aidan lectured on the topic of “Liturgical Art as Prophecy and Priesthood.” Recovering the iconographic tradition is about much more than art. Without a vision, the people perish, Aidan insisted, drawing on Proverbs 29.

During that same visit to Princeton, Aidan sat down in the video studio with me and Jonathan Pageau , an icon carver, writer, and podcaster whose work on symbolic meanings has reached countless people.

As the three of us discussed icons of the Transfiguration, I realized even more how sacred art helps restore in our hearts the sense that God’s grace is not merely about healing us from sin (as much as I need that!). Sacred art draws us into the mystery of God’s love, lifts us up, and allows us to experience God’s glory radiating through the material world into our inner being.

Mary, the Mother of God, knew very well that our sacred callings require discernment. In this conversation with Aidan, he discusses themes from his book Festal Icons, which looks at traditional ways the Annunciation to Mary by the Angel Gabriel has been depicted, highlighting her not as a passive vessel but as actively listening for God’s word and responding in obedience, with joy and hope, to the will of God.

Icons: Living or Dead?

Why do Catholics and Orthodox pray to dead people like saints? A Pentecostal student told me that a church historian who identifies as a Reformed Christian recently answered that question by telling her, “Because they don’t believe the people depicted are dead. The saints are alive in heaven.”

The misperceptions about icons are not new; what seems new to me is the keen insight of people like UK journalist Mary Harrington, who, in her review of my book, noted many reasons why icons of Mary are particularly speaking to reverts to Christianity like her and many, many others right now.

Harrington’s remarks inspired my husband David to write two articles on his Way of Beauty Substack about the connections between early church understandings of Mary’s active cooperation with God’s will and the debates about the veneration of images in the church, which are, in fact, deeply connected.

The Way of Beauty

When Mary Calls, It Is Surprising Who Hears

Earlier this month, Mary Harrington devoted her popular newsletter to a book she says she did not expect to land on her doorstep. The book was When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God by Princeton Theological Seminary professor Margarita Mooney Clayton. Harrington’s review carried the title “The Icons Are Coming Alive Again,”. It is…

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3 months ago · 15 likes · 1 comment · David Clayton

My instinct, confirmed by Harrington’s response to my book and by every single person to whom I’ve ever shown one of Aidan’s icons, is that beautiful sacred art will help people to know Mary as a living person, and increase their desire to thank God for such a beautiful spiritual mother whose love reaches us from heaven.

The Way of Beauty

Why Devotion to Mary Is Necessary if We Are to Preserve the Faith and Evangelize the Culture

In a recent posting I wrote about Mary Harrington’s review of my wife Margarita’s new book, When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God and in particular about the connection she drew between the purging of images at the Reformation and the long decline of Marian devotion that followed. Harrington sensed that the two belonged together…

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3 months ago · 13 likes · 1 comment · David Clayton

This Glory Can Be Yours

If you are new to icons specifically, or new to sacred art entirely, I suggest simply having one icon of Mary and Jesus in your home. Let your gaze rest on the image. You don’t have to ask for a miracle, nor speak any specific words, or any words at all. Treat Mary and Jesus pictured in your home as you would a picture of your family. They are your family.

Regardless of whether or not you already love icons or just want to take the first step, look at Aidan’s amazing website where you can find out how to study with him, read his articles, gaze at his work on the screen, purchase a print of his work, or even commission an icon for your church.

I particularly encourage my readers in the UK to order When Mary Calls today. If you already own my book, consider giving it to someone else as a gift.

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You can be a patron of Aidan’s work through his Patreon program, where monthly donations from as little as 2.50 GBP a month will ensure you will never have a day devoid of sacred beauty.

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More Coming Soon from the UK

I’ve recently arrived in the UK, where I’ll be recording interviews about the book with The Catholic Truth Society and The Spectator (UK). I’ve also had the chance to meet Mary Harrington personally, and to discuss CS Lewis and Mary with Rev. Dr. Michael Ward, the world’s leading scholar of Lewis, who is based in Oxford. I’m grateful to Blackfriars Hall at Oxford University, where I started the research for this book and for their commitment to integrating beauty, truth and virtue in their work and lives.

And I’m visiting Aidan’s studios again in Shropshire, and I’ll post some notes about the beauty I find there!

In-Person and Live Stream Event on June 10

Come see me in person in Washington, DC on June 10th at 6 pm at the Catholic Information Center, or register to watch the livestream! Hint: I’ll share how I learned from my mentor, the African-American scholar of religion Albert Raboteau, why remembering Mary at the foot of the cross gives insights into not only the meaning of compassion but also creativity.

If there’s time, I hope to also explain why Mary’s unexpected calls are responding to the need for authentic community and (small c) catholicity—universal truths we all embrace which allow our particular gifts to shine.

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Recurring Questions

Thanks to video interviews with Tammy Peterson and Eric Metaxas, and an appearance on nationally syndicated radio—thousands of people, if not more than a million people—have heard me answer questions such as:

• Why are seekers, Protestants, and fallen-away Catholics returning home to Christ and his church through Mary?

• Why do those who believes in the Bible and loves Jesus need to know Mary?

• Why did I, a life-long Roman Catholic, write this book about Mary as a mix of personal stories, memoirs and theological reflections?

• How is the renewed interest in liturgical worship (including sacred art and music) related to love of Mary?

If you look at the some of the critical or dismissive comments on this YouTube video, you will see I am not preaching to the choir. In fact, I hope I’m not preaching at all. I hope, as I told Eric Metaxas and his listeners, I want this book to remind all Christians that they are called to know Mary personally as their mother. Eric admitted in this interview that he has had a resurgent interest in Mary as the result of a vision his father had of Mary when he was dying.

Won’t we know Jesus better if we also know his mother? If Jesus loved Mary does it make sense for us to ignore her or belittle her? Should we expect young people to embrace the risk of motherhood if we forget the Mother of God?

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Ecumenical Restoration Through Mary

Reviewing my book on her popular Substack, UK-based philosopher and journalist Mary Harrington pronounced: “The Icons are Coming Alive Again.”

Mary Harrington

The Icons Are Coming Alive Again

A young man experiences healing at a holy well in Ireland; Our Lady of Guadaloupe speaks to a young pregnant woman through “a tear in the world”, saving her life. An artist finds his way from a secular upbringing, through 12 years of monastic life, to lay married life as an icon painter. A composer reframes artistic creativity through the story of the Annunciation…

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5 months ago · 122 likes · 29 comments · Mary Harrington

“Once a central figure of Christian iconography, the veneration of Mary became deprecated in the great religious upheaval of the Reformation and is now viewed as a bit odd unless you’re Catholic or Orthodox. But over recent years I’ve come to feel, increasingly strongly, that the ‘mother shaped blind spot’, a central theme in my writing, is deeply bound up with [Mary’s] disappearance from mainstream Anglophone culture….

[WHEN MARY CALLS] is a gentle, careful work of ecumenical restoration, whose author is both courageous and vulnerable in offering her own relationship with Mary, as a prism through which to refract other stories. If you are looking for a nourishing, ecumenical, and accessible resource for reflection on Mary—and perhaps through her—there may be gifts for you in this book.”

—Mary Harrington, journalist and author of Feminism Against Progress

I posted on her comments section:

“I reflect praise for the book to where I hope my book on Mary directs people: to greater knowledge of God’s merciful love which was manifested in the world through the Jesus taking the form of human flesh in the womb of Mary... I hope to invite people to a simply posture of stating, or rather asking with wonder, as Elizabeth did, “Why am I so favored that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43).

If Only We Knew Our Faith Better

I’m grateful to Ashley McGuire and Betsy Fentress for publishing a transcript of their interview with me for Catholic Conversations. How I hope both Catholics and Protestants read my book and this interview—if only we knew how much we share!

Catholic Conversations with TCA

Our Lady of the Unexpected: Mary's Mantle Covers the World

by Ashley McGuire and Betsy Fentress…

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4 months ago · 5 likes

My Debut Leading Music and Prayer at the National Cathedral in DC

Most of us intuitively know that music and art can bring us to a posture of loving attention. When Anne Snyder, Editor-in-Chief of Comment Magazine, invited me to lead morning devotions about Mary on May 29 and 30, 2026, at the National Cathedral in DC as part of a 3-day festival called “Understory”, I dreamed about how I could integrate Scripture, art and music as I introduced Mary to a mostly Protestant crowd of 1,000 people (though registration for my sessions was limited to under 100 to keep it intimate).

For more than a year, I’ve been taking voice lessons, hoping to be a better choir member and a causal singer at friendly gatherings. Now I saw my chance for a debut as a leader of church music in a magnificent cathedral that rivals some of the best in Europe! I worked hard with my voice teacher to rehearse two Marian hymns of praise, the Salve Regina and the Regina Coeli, which I sang at the end of morning prayer sessions that largely followed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. To my delight, those gathered, stood, knelt, and prayed together the psalms and also sang together the two Marian hymns which I led.

What if we began each and every day in a posture of loving attention to the Word of God, illuminated by the art and music which help us make connections across revelation and receive insights into our own personal callings?

Mary is Near

Perhaps the most common reaction I’ve gotten is deeply personal: countless stories of Mary’s compassion, protection, intercession and loving presence have poured out as hymn of praise to God’s ongoing mysterious and miraculous presence among us.

Whether you are far or near from me, I hope you know that Mary is near you, drawing you to Christ and his church, showing you just how much you are loved and just how great your calling is.

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Today, June 2, 2026, MacMillan’s latest composition, entitled Angels Unawares premieres in London. Working through our senses, this oratorio Angels Unawares leads people into a space of contemplation where we can experience the mystery of our existence and respond to our personal callings with faith and service. I hope that this new oratorio, and MacMillan’s beautiful music about Mary we discuss in my book, invite broad audiences of seekers and people of faith alike to re-encounter traditional Christian themes of trust in God and compassion for the stranger.

MacMillan sees the music he writes as a chance to reach people who are searching to connect their spiritual longings to a religious tradition. As MacMillian explains in my book on Mary, the Christian view of creativity stands above what MacMillan calls the “transient fashions and banalities of the culture of today.” Christianity, he explains, must be incarnational: as Christ took flesh in Mary’s womb, along with Mary, we are called to be vessels of the grace of the Incarnation, infusing the divine spirit into matter.

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“Catholicism has always meant a lot to me,” MacMillan said. “But in those early days I couldn’t see any way of allowing the religious dimension into the practice of my music, and, of course, those who flattered themselves that they were at the cutting edge of this particular art form would say that there was no place for something as reactionary and anachronistic as the Catholic faith in the modern artistic world.”

Abraham’s Hospitality to Angels

Angels Unawares challenges us all—whether seekers or regular religious practitioners—to ask ourselves what we make of Biblical stories of angels.

Imagine you’re a nomad in the desert, trying to protect your household in a harsh land. Three strangers are approaching your compound. What do they want? What do you do?

If you are Abraham of the Bible, because you are steadfastly obedient to God in his wisdom and mercy, you rush out to welcome them into your home. You offer them water, bread, milk, a freshly prepared calf, and a cool place to rest during their journey. And then these three unfamiliar figures deliver a message from God: that you and your wife Sarah, far advanced in years, are going to have a child.

Commenting on this story from Genesis, St. Paul would write: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2).

Named for this passage, Sir James MacMillan’s new oratorio Angels Unawares premiers today, June 2, 2026 in London. The composition sets to music twelve poems by the late Richard Willis that call our attention to surprising encounters with angels in the Bible. Abraham’s loving attention to strangers encapsulates MacMillan’s aim with this piece: to enrapture our attention through music so we may be transformed by the presence of the divine within us and respond with greater love for others.

“At its core it is an encouragement to show kindness to strangers as a spiritual discipline, an appeal to treat all individuals with dignity and compassion, recognising that every encounter with another person could carry a deeper (even supernatural) significance than it appears on the surface. There is an added layer of mystery to the verse, implying that angels might be present in everyday life, unnoticed,” MacMillan told me.

“There are many people in today’s world who are fascinated and beguiled by the idea of angels,” he said. “And they run like a significant theme throughout the Judeo-Christian legacy.”

As MacMillan said, “the curiosity for many seekers is that these unexpected, mysterious things that happen to have a deeper implication, both supernatural and ethical. We are being called to enter into a deeper sense of compassion in our daily lives, and that compassion comes from a deeper spiritual significance. The Christian message at the heart of these angelic encounters reminds us of the desire for God, of the numinous, for us to be more kind, more forgiving in our lives.”

MacMillan’s composition is an invitation to recover that loving attention to God’s active dwelling in each of us that inspired Abraham’s hospitality to strangers. Christianity is not primarily an ethical code of conduct, but a way of life that opens our hardened hearts to receive God’s loving gifts and respond in kind.

Here is a recording of this piece from its world premiere, which had its world premiere at the Sistene Chapel in the Vatican earlier in 2026.

Christian Mysticism and Ethical Action

As Jacques Maritain, a twentieth-century Catholic philosopher, wrote in his magnum opus The Degrees of Knowledge, mystical contemplation of God is the basis of truly ethical action. Because of human sinfulness, only through an encounter with God do our actions become motivated by love. Christian mysticism and Christian ethics were never meant to be separated.

In the modern world, however, too often people want to harness the power of the mysterious or the spiritual for their own ends. This is a mistake. Mystical encounters are not meant to center ourselves or draw us out of the world; rather, they refresh our bodies and souls to encounter others in deeper ways.

After the opening line from St. Paul, the oratorio proceeds chronologically through Scripture. Not all encounters with the spiritual world are benevolent: the first story we hear about is Eve’s temptation by an evil spirit that led to humanity’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. This is followed by Abraham’s hospitality.

Next, Old Testament visions of Angels—from Jacob’s ladder to Elijah and Ezekiel—stoke our imagination, guiding us to wonder about the still small voices that suggest we too might hear from God. When, like Elijah, have we felt a still small voice moving us to greater love and hope?

Mary’s Encounter with an Angel Challenged Her

The New Testament passages open with Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel, which startled her and challenged her. Mary was troubled by the angel’s words, “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” (Luke 1:31) This was not a plan she had for herself, and she didn’t understand it. But she consented, saying, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

Despite her great call, Mary didn’t draw attention to herself. Rather she ran to be at the side of her cousin Elizabeth, who had conceived a child in her old age (John the Baptist).

None of us will be asked to do what Mary was. But any of us, if we listen, may be challenged by a message from God.

Wrestling with Powers of Darkness

Christ was not free of temptation, wrestling with powers of darkness in the wilderness. New Testament figures Nathanael and Mary of Magdala are recalled for their visions of angels, who led them to recognize Christ as their savior. Peter was so dramatically freed from prison by angels that the guard was tempted to kill himself but instead embraced Christian baptism.

Angels Unawares ends with John’s visions in Revelation remind us that the spiritual battle, though won eternally by Christ, continues in this world. Yet, we are meant to be comforted, indeed protected, by the woman in Revelation 12 who crushes the head of the serpent—an allegorical image of Mary.

A Musical and Catholic Revival Coming from Scotland?

Born into a secularizing, impoverished area of Scotland in 1963, how is it that a composer, and a man of deep Catholic faith like MacMillan is now bringing to the UK a resounding invitation to hear music of angels?

Today, many young people in the UK are raised with no exposure to the beauty of Christianity. In my studies in sociology, when the topics of art and beauty were raised, we were expected to scorn the religious inspirations behind works of art and music as if those motivations or any high ideals cover up the so-called “true” desires for power, domination, or subversion. Has the tide of secularism now shifted in the United Kingdom and in the arts world?

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In remarks given in Italy in 2002, Pope Benedict XVI stated that “the radiance of the beauty we contemplate opens the soul to the mystery of God.” A true encounter with beauty, Benedict XVI adds, must lead to a readiness for sacrifice, not desire for power; to self-giving, not possession.

Perhaps that’s why MacMillan’s music, and increasingly the Catholic faith behind his work, continue to spark curiosity among large audiences in his native UK and among the millions who have listened to his work on YouTube or Spotify. MacMillan has grown more confident in asserting that he believes his work is divinely inspired, which led one journalist to declare that idea was so avant-garde that it is countercultural. He embraced the term, now describing his music as part of “a brave radical countercultural vision…to attempt to resynchronize the world around us.”

As I’ve noted in my new book, When Mary Calls: Unexpected Encounters with the Mother of God, traditional Christian practices like pilgrimages and veneration of images of saints and Mary—practices once proscribed by Henry VIII’s 1538 injunction, given by Thomas Cromwell—have seen a resurgence of interest from Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and other Protestants in the United Kingdom.

In his comments on my book, Jonathan Pageau, an icon carver, public speaker, YouTuber, editor of the Orthodox Arts Journal, and host of The Symbolic World blog and podcast wrote that:

“As the shadow of secularism passes over us, an increasing multitude of people wish to experience a deep connection with God and experience His presence in creation. When Mary Calls will help us remember Mary as both the Mother of God and our own mother. Margarita Mooney Clayton shows us the many ways Mary guides us to the embodiment of her Son.”

I sincerely hope that many people who hear MacMillan’s work Angels Unawares or his rousing music about Mary, or his music for the liturgy, will be filled with the most real yet most elusive, mysterious sense of being seen by angels, embraced by a loving God, and will stand up, walk out, pick up the Gospels, go to a beautiful Sunday liturgy, and dedicate their lives to compassionate service.

ORDER WHEN MARY CALLS

In this recently released interview with Tammy Peterson, which has 22K views on YouTube in less than a week since it was posted, we move slowly through the seven stories (including hers) that are the heart of the book.

I love how the YouTube thumbnail Tammy put up simply states: “Mary is Real.”

I have to admit that I looked at the comments on YouTube with some trepidation, as I know this topic generates strong opinions. But to my delight, when people expressed the typical concerns about Marian beliefs and devotions, they were met by faithful Christians who quoted Scripture, the church fathers, and church teachings.

But what struck me was that the truth of those teachings resonated with many deep personal experiences people have had with Mary. Mary is a person we can relate to in a variety of ways, trusting in her not to lead us astray.

An important part of this project for me was understanding and defending the love of Mary using Scripture, the church fathers, church history, church teachings, liturgical prayers, hymns, and icons of Mary. I buried myself in the library, then agonized until I realized I didn’t need to write a book summarizing all the sources I'd read. I could, if I wanted to, answer every single concern or objection about Mary by drawing on Scripture and tradition. Anyone who wants to know more can jump to the appendix of my book to find great resources and start reading.

But I want people to read stories like Tammy’s so they can see Mary is really present today. When she was facing a life-threatening illness, a Catholic friend taught (then non-Christian) Tammy to pray the rosary, leading her through the Scripture verses that go with each decade of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. In my private conversations with Tammy Peterson, which are now published in my book, Tammy stated clearly, “Mary led me to Christ, and Christ led me to the Church.”

Tammy was seeking God fervently, but she needed to be formed so she could receive more light. Although the rosary certainly expresses love for Mary, the formative power of the rosary is that its prayers order our attention to the life of Christ in the Gospels from the Annunciation to his glorious resurrection. When documents like Pope Paul VI’s 1974 letter Marialis Cultus talk about devotion to Mary being subordinate to Christ, that does not mean love of Mary lessens our love for Christ, but rather, love of Mary is meant to bind us to Christ and his church, as it did for Tammy.

Perhaps we can think of the formative power of prayers like the rosary and other devotions to Mary like hiking up a mountain. Climbing a mountain to hear God speak has deep Biblical resonances. Moses heard God’s word on a mountaintop. Christ ascended a mountain at the Transfiguration, so filled with light that the disciples fell to the ground.

When I visited Tammy in Arizona, I followed her quick steps up Camelback Mountain. The view got wider, and my sense of anticipation for anything and everything was heightened. At the edge of earth and sky, creation seemed miraculous.

I’m keenly aware that the ability to achieve any athletic feat requires daily exercise. This is especially true for me since I was injured by being hit by a car when walking across the street nearly seven years ago; now I have to work out regularly just to avoid pain. Humans are a unity of body and soul, and our hearts and our intellects need to be formed as much as our bodies.

We are all fallen and in need of grace. Who among us does not need to be formed to see Christ as we should? Who has not struggled to join a church or stay in church? Who does not need guides so we continuously stick to the path we have called to follow?

As Tammy remarks in the foreword she wrote to my book When Mary Calls: “So many people in the world today are confused about what it means to be a person and to be a mother. Feminism, digital isolation, broken families, psychological pain, and fragmentation of all kinds have left many people cynical that life can be anything more than an endless competition or a series of pointless struggles…Each person’s story in this book reveals that wisdom [of Scripture] in powerful, personal ways. Most importantly, the Mother of our Lord, who is too often forgotten, is powerfully present in these pages. You will read about various ways Mary touches people, heals them, and carries them to God. This book will help you know that Mary is calling you, too.”

“Holy Mary, Mother of God…” Those powerful words from the second part of the Hail Mary are not word-for-word in Scripture. But they do point us back to the Incarnation of Christ through a human mother, and to Mary as the one whom all generations will call blessed (Luke 1:48). Such beautiful words are easy to repeat, easy to memorize, as Tammy did in the hospital years ago, freeing our hearts from fear, isolation, and doubt to ask for a clearer vision of how God’s plan for our lives.

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Knowing Mary better thus allows us to explore larger questions all Christians grapple with such as: how does God’s grace work? What did the Apostle Peter mean when he said all followers of Christ “may become participants of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4)?

Each chapter of my book presents people encountering Mary, herself a vessel of the Holy Spirit at the Incarnation, as, they, too, long to to have Pentecostal moments. Those moments where we feel upheld by God’s grace strengthen our faith that deification, or sanctification, becoming partakers in the divine nature, is a possibility for each and every person.

Acts 1:14 names Mary as being present in the upper room while the disciples awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit. Images such as this one by Jean Restout visually illustrate Mary’s central presence at the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles.

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A Student’s Reflections on Mary at Pentecost

The very first time I taught a course on Mary to my mostly Protestant students at Princeton Theological Seminary, a young man named Kyle Barton said he thought knowing more about Mary’s life of grace would help him understand in how the early church understood deification.

For one of his class assignments, Kyle studied Cardinal Rainero Cantalamessa’s Mary, Mirror of the Church. Born in Italy, and having studied theology in Fribourg, Switzerland, and classical literature in Milan, Italy, Cantalamessa served for 12 years as a member of the Catholic Commission for dialogue with the Pentecostal churches. He was appointed preacher to the Papal Household by Pope Saint John Paul II, a position he also held under Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

Cantalamessa: Mary is a Mirror of the Church

Kyle, who is now continuing his theological studies as a PhD student at Baylor University, wrote a fantastic introduction to Cantalamessa’s book, which I quote here:

“In Mary, Mirror of the Church Raniero Cardinal Cantalamessa presents a series of reflections on the scriptural witness to Mary as a path to practical holiness. As the title indicates, Cantalamessa views Mary as a mirror of the church. All Christians are to see an image of their own calling to faithful discipleship reflected in her experiences. Though her role in salvation history is unique—for no other human is elected to be Theotokos—her experiences, in principle, are not unrepeatable. She is a map that God gives us for our own pilgrimage to practical holiness, and if we know how to read her correctly, a clear path forward will open for the church.

While the New Testament mentions Mary only a few times, Cantalamessa believes these references are strategic and of great significance, containing clues to the crux of the Christian life. As Cantalamessa points out numerous times, only Mary was present at all three events that form the heart of the Christian mystery—the incarnation, the crucifixion, and Pentecost. Like a small glimmer of gold in a mine, these references, though scant, should signal to believers the riches available here if they just started digging. Contemplating Mary’s place in these mysteries elucidates the mysteries of our own pilgrimage of faith, for here a human vessel participates in the great events that comprise salvation—the union of divinity and humanity, the defeat of death and removal of sin, and the birth of the church through the reception of the Holy Spirit.

To be a Christian is to know these mysteries experientially, and thus to be a Christian is to follow in Mary’s footsteps no less than it is to follow in Abraham’s. Cantalamessa’s conviction is that God speaks to us through Mary’s life, and though the Scriptures do not present her as loquacious, she is in fact ‘pregnant with the Word,’ so that ‘the few words and verses referring to her in the Gospels are extraordinarily charged with meaning and resonance.’“

Reading Kyle’s full paper, linked to here with his gracious permission, will certainly delight you as much as it did me!

Barton Mary, Mirror Of The Church

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Cantalamessa writes and speaks about Mary, as do I, with the hope that, as she did at Pentecost, she will serve as a source of unity, helping Catholics and Protestants encounter the Scriptures anew.

Mary and the Gospel of Grace

The title of my book, When Mary Calls, attempts to capture the reality I encountered: many people from a variety of Christian backgrounds, or no particular religious background, are experiencing Mary’s presence in their lives, calling them to a life of holiness, of seeking to walk in God’s grace.

I wrote my book for seekers as well as those who already know Mary well, or only known a little. I’m inspired to do what Cantalamessa describes as presenting “the Christian life through preaching the gospel of grace…in a kerygmatic way [a passionate proclamation of the Gospel of our salvation[, certain that it has an intrinsic power.” I do not discard dogmas as somehow irrelevant, but I focus on the transformative life experiences which give those dogmas meaning.

As Cantalamessa writes, “When Scripture is the basis, the starting point is God’s Word, and in expounding its meaning, the dogma is reached as the true interpretation given by the Church. This is the way truth came down to us.”

Mary’s presence at Pentecost reminds us that we are not meant to journey towards God alone, but with the church. Cantalamessa writes, “Mary is a mirror of the Church in two ways: to reflect the light she herself receives as a mirror does with the light of the sun. And because she is such that the Church can and must mirror herself in Mary to make herself beautiful for her heavenly spouse.”

Yes, Mary was the First Pentecostal

After going through each chapter of the book, Kyle reaches a profound conclusion that can be drawn from meditating upon Mary’s presence at Pentecost. As he wrote in his essay for my class “Ecumencial Devotion to Mary”,

“Chapter 8 brings us directly to Pentecost, where Cantalamessa christens Mary ‘the first pentecostal’ in the church. A striking parallel is sketched between Mary’s experience in Luke 1 and the church’s experience in Acts 1. In both instances, the Spirit comes upon individuals who then proclaim the great things that God has done. Mary becomes a type of the church as ‘a living organism, irrigated and animated by the Holy Spirit’ through both sacraments and charisms. Most interesting here is how Mary becomes an example of ‘the free and unpredictable action of God’s Spirit,’ who works ‘outside the instituted channels’ of the church’s hierarchical structure. Mary’s experience teaches us to look to a God who ‘intervenes explosively… to renew a tradition and a cult that have become simple routine and formalism.’

Chapter 9 is on the Johannine Pentecost—’he bowed is head and give up his Spirit.’ While Luke emphasizes the Spirit’s power in the church’s mission, John emphasizes the Spirit’s presence in the church’s life. Mary teaches us that no matter how much God has used us in the past, we are always in need of ‘new and successive effusions of the Holy Spirit’ and that many times Pentecost ‘takes place beneath the cross.’

Cantalamessa has given us a rich meditation on Mary as an example of the path of discipleship. There is much here that Protestants can appreciate. Although Cantalamessa does not skirt the Marian dogmas, he goes out of his way to be conciliatory and to be sensitive to his Protestant siblings’ consternations and grievances. When he unavoidably must present Mary’s premier role and titles per Catholic teaching, he reasons at length to make them intelligible, admits that they have been sometimes taken to wrong extremes, and even a few times does not insist that all have to follow this path. After explaining how believers, like John, are to take Mary into their lives—one of the more devotionally radical teachings of the book—he then concedes that ‘this kind of life with Mary is not the only and necessary way to be imposed on everyone.’ He longs that Mary would become a source of unity in the church, not division.”

Part of the assignment for class was to imagine how a book about Mary would reach Protestants.

Kyle wrote: “Would this approach appeal to Protestants? I think so. It is a serious, engaging, and heartfelt plea to learn from Mary to whatever extent the Spirit calls one. There are resources in these pages that could spawn numerous Protestant Bible studies and sermons. Protestants do well to listen attentively and follow where they can.

Cantalamessa showcases the value of a devotional approach ‘from below,’ sourced in Scripture. I was truly surprised by the mileage he got out of this approach, especially when put into conversation with the whole canon of Scripture powered by a typologically rich hermeneutic. This is a book I will be returning to and recommending to my fellow Protestants who are looking to reflect more deeply on the lessons that Mary’s life can teach us. And for those Protestants who are not yet able to call Mary Mother, maybe they can start with Mirror.”

Cantalamessa’s book presents a challenge, or maybe better put, an adventure, that Kyle was willing to take up. After we consider something in Mary’s life, we must ask ourselves, what does this mean for us? We must not just be hearers of the Word, but doers, as Mary herself was.

Our Response to the Holy Spirit

As Cantalamessa puts it: “Mary teaches us to say yes to God with freedom, joy, and passion.” Mary calls us towards God, and, if we allow her, she will teach us to be good disciples, as she certainly did in the upper room at Pentecost and for the early Christian church.

Mary’s quiet presence at Pentecost, and her often silent presence at other places in Scripture, including the Nativity and the Cross, is pregnant with meaning. Perhaps, with Mary at our side, we can look anew at the Scriptures, opening ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us from within, moving from silent prayer to willing obedience to God’s calls.

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All of us inevitably must confront death—our own and that of our loved ones. My book reflects on what Mary’s spiritual motherhood meant to me, a woman who did not marry until I was 48, when I lost a student who I loved like a spiritual son. John was born 33 years ago today, on April 23, 1993. Tragically, he died of cancer on May 3rd, 2019.

When I went with John to his last Mass on earth, he cried out, “Mary, help us all!” I believe Mary welcomed him home to God the Father, just as I believe she did for Eric Metaxas’s father, and so many others who have experienced mystical encounters with Mary.

To celebrate John’s amazing life, I wanted to share the eulogy to John I gave at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City at his funeral Mass held on May 7th, 2019. A few paragraphs of the eulogy I believe were divinely inspired—I woke up in the middle of the night with important words I needed to add to clarify that John faced his death with hope. I couldn’t sleep again, so I conversed with Mary and Jesus for hours, simply repeating the rosary prayers, until the sun came up.

Exhausted but convicted, I clutched a rosary as I walked up the steps to the alar at St. Patrick’s, pausing to bow before the tabernacle. I stood at the podium and spoke the most heart-wrenching, yet hopeful, words I’ve ever spoken in front of a packed cathedral of John’s mourning friends and family. On the way back to my seat, I laid my head and my rosary on John’s coffin and let the tears flow like a river.

Now, I share once again my final conversations with John, a bittersweet reminder that spiritual motherhood is a beautiful gift God gave a woman like me who longed for biological children but never received them. My personal life has shown me the many ways God makes that which appears barren to be fertile.

I hope you read this eulogy, and read When Mary Calls, and remember that Mary is your mother, too. I hope you allow Mary to walk with you, as John and I did, as you pass through the valley of tears in this life on your pilgrimage towards the New Jerusalem.

A Eulogy for John Aroutiounian

The last time I saw John Aroutiounian was Sunday, April 7^th. We met at Big Daddy’s, a 1950s diner on Broadway. John’s cancer was well advanced by that time, but he didn’t want to talk about his illness. So we talked about politics, we talked about our favorite music, and I unburdened on him some of my own personal concerns.

When the food came, John was so sick he could barely eat. I could see his energy disappearing fast. They brought the bill and John reached for his wallet. When I told him to put his wallet away, he got mad. He was a person for others. Generous to an heroic degree. The creditor in almost every relationship.

Easter was just a couple of weeks away, and John had told me not long before, with a sparkle in his eyes, that if he felt better, he was going to hop on a plane to the Holy Land—Jerusalem—for Easter. But as his suffering worsened rapidly, he looked at me that day and said, “Margarita, I’m not going to make it to Jerusalem for Easter. I may not make it to Easter at all.”

As I said goodbye to him that day, he was in terrible pain, but he called out to me, saying that he was so happy I had come over, and he thanked me for being there with him. As I walked out the door, he shouted three times that he loved me.

We pray that John has now finished the pilgrimage of life to the heavenly Jerusalem where he celebrates the fulfillment of all Jesus accomplished on Easter.

I have had the joy to write several letters of recommendation for John since I met him during my time on the faculty at Yale. He made it so easy to praise him to others. He had some huge accomplishments, like winning the tough but friendly competition to be speaker of the prestigious Yale Political Union. But his erudition and passion were surpassed by his compassion, serving as a suicide hotline counselor and as a freshmen counselor at Yale’s Jonathan Edwards College.

John and I worked together to organize a variety of student groups, first at Yale and then through a nonprofit I started called Scala, that focused on integrating intellectual and personal development. John keenly wanted to imbibe everything he did with a spirit of friendship and community. More than just a student of mine and a collaborator, I thought of John like a son, someone with whom I could share intellectual jousting but also the ups and downs, joys, and sorrows and big questions of life.

In God’s providential plan, I had scheduled to have dinner with John in New York in January 2018, on the day he received his cancer diagnosis. His body didn’t really show signs of illness until almost a year later. John chose to suffer quietly, without a lot of attention. John was a self-giver. He wanted to care for others. He didn’t want the spotlight on himself.

It was very hard, but also an honor, to watch him suffer so much. When I visited him in the hospital on March 24, we wept together over his pain and fears about his earthly end. When our tears dried, we talked about a subject he had broached several times since he received his diagnosis: that suffering can be redemptive. If somehow God was going to allow John to die so young, John believed firmly that his suffering would not be in vain. Jesus once said in the Gospel, “No one takes my life from me. I freely lay it down” (Jn 10:18). John likewise willingly offered his life, in the prime of his life, to God for the good of others.

I was blessed to one of the few people near John in his final weeks on earth. In one of my last emails to him, I told him that in seeing his so body sick, I simultaneously saw more clearly why so many people loved him: he had a soul and heart that desired truth, beauty, goodness and the infinite. As his sufferings grew, his faith grew, and therefore his natural ability to love others expanded as well.

John desired great things. When we were talking about some of them, I suggested to him that those desires were the sign of God’s image in him. We long for the transcendent, and that helps give unity and grandeur to the beautiful things of the world and lifts our human loves up to a sacred level. John smiled, because in some ways, I think, he recognized it to be autobiographical: John knew how to unite the human and the sacred, and he did that most powerfully through the way he embraced his own cross. It made him better, not bitter.

Suffering, he shared, doesn’t rob us of our grandeur; rather, when lived well, it prepares us for grandeur by breaking our sense of control and our self-centeredness. Suffering does this by turning our attention to our dependence on God, which rather than diminishing us, ennobles us.

Not long before he died, he told me how much he loved liturgy. To worship God, John said, was the most human thing we can do because to be in the presence of our Creator fulfills the deepest desires of our humanity. I went to Mass with John on March 31st. He was suffering so much that he could barely walk or stand. But he was there, worshipping God with all he could muster. It moved me to tears.

As he approached the end, I wrote in my journal that although I feared he was dying, his life would always bea sign to me of the dignity of every human person, and how his big dreams were a sign of the great things we are called to become even as and after our bodies waste away.

I finished the entry with a prayer expressing the hope that comes from the depth of the Christian faith we shared: “John, I will see you again in heaven and call you by name. And we shall worship together again at the throne of our Creator, Lord and Redeemer.”

In the last few months of his life, when his medical diagnosis was grim, when it appeared science couldn’t save him, I joined John and his loved ones in praying for a miracle down to the last moment of his life. I didn’t want John to die! John had so many things, so many people to live for! He loved so many people!

But, I believed that if God didn’t grant the miracle we were all asking for, John had accepted his innocent suffering as a kind of martyrdom, an offering of love, an act of obedience even. Through John’s love and obedience, the willing sacrifice of his life on earth, I firmly believe that God will work even greater miracles in this world.

And I hope that, when my earthly life comes to its end, I will imitate John’s courage and faith. Like he did on earth the last time I saw him, when it’s time to go home to the heavenly Jerusalem, I believe that John will call out, not just to me, but to all of us who loved him, telling us he loves us, and saying how happy and grateful he is that we have come to be with him.

Remembering John Aroutiounian

These remarks, and other conversations I had with John as he approached his death with grace and hope, will be shared in a future volume of writings from John’s friends being prepared by his family. Some of John’s writings on politics, faith and culture were published in the book Finding Gold in the Dark: Reflecting on Modern America, Virtue and Faith.

John was with me from the birth of Scala in 2016, helping me develop its vision and put together its first summer program. Here is John’s testimony from when he participated in (and helped to organize) Scala’s first summer seminar in 2017, held at Oxford University and Ampleforth Abbey, UK.

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In less than three weeks, on May 5, 2026, my book on Mary will be officially released! If you like, you can pre-order When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God now and be sure to have it before Mother’s Day.

I’ve been invited to share about the book in New York City on April 22, and in Washington DC on May 29 and 30 and then again in DC on June 10 (both in person and live streamed). See below for details on those events! And stay tuned for the release of already-recorded interviews about the book with my friends Tammy Peterson (who wrote a foreward to the book and is profiled in the book), Eric Metaxas (who endorsed the book and shared a surprising story about Mary in his life in our recent interview about the book for Socrates in the Studio).

After an introduction where I discuss the trends in faith and culture that led me to write this book, I share my reflections on relying on Mary to help me navigate dangerous trips to assist political and religious dissidents in Communist Cuba. Plough magazine published an excerpt from that piece, and you can come hear me discuss that experience on April 22, 2026, in New York.

I’m immensely grateful to the other six people whose memoirs are the backbone of an exploration of Mary’s spiritual presence in our troubled times, leading people from fear to hope, from confusion to light, from loneliness to the church. Jonathan Pageau, icon carver and host of the Symbolic World podcast wrote, “As the shadow of secularism passes over us, an increasing multitude of people wish to experience a deep connection with God and experience His presence in creation. hen Mary Calls will help us remember Mary as both the Mother of God and our own mother.”

For all of those I profile in the book, regardless of where they began their faith journeys—as a seeker, a Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox Mary’s motherhood is a real presence alongside them as they seek to understand suffering and live with compassion for others, aim to co-create beautiful music and art that expresses human dignity.

On May 29 and 30, 2026, at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, I’m honored to be leading morning devotions using the Book of Common Prayer and Marian hymns and antiphons as part of The Understory, a multi-day cultural festival organized by the leaders of Comment magazine. I hope to see you there!

On June 10, 2026, both in person and live-streamed, I’ll present on the book at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC. A long time browser and buyer of their books, I’m thrilled to be a speaker in their lovely facility just blocks from the White House! Click here to save your spot or watch this event online.

Is Mary new to you? Don’t worry—this book is for everyone, regardless of what they do or do not know about Mary. I just ask that you read the book with an open heart, that you be willing to know Mary as a subject, a person, not merely a point of division among some Christians. (If you want to clarify doctrinal issues right away, then turn first to the detailed annotated bibliography of the book and read for yourself Scripture scholars, church historians, and doctrinal works on Mary from Orthodox, Catholics, mainline Protestants and Evangelicals.)

I want this book to help people to know Mary and to revere her through the riches of the artistic and musical traditions of the church, traditions which are being enlivened today, which can be found in the great churches that have been built that can enrich our lives and extend open up our hearts to Scripture and allow us to know Mary as a person, to hear her in the Scriptures, to see her in art, and ultimately, like the people in my book to hear her in our hearts. We honor Mary when we see her Scripture, when we gaze upon her depicted in artistic presentations of Scripture, and when raise ours voice to hers, and with hers, in prayers of praise for God’s work through her.

One further endorsement of the book came Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P., who is the Global Promoter of the rosary for the Dominican Order wrote: “As someone who learned gradually to befriend and love the Blessed Mother, these stories resonated with my own experience. Mary is truly our patient mother. I once claimed I did not need Mary, but she still quietly revealed herself to me in providential and miraculous ways. This journey led me closer to Christ because Mary always leads us closer to Christ. May these stories deepen your appreciation for Our Lady’s maternal role in your life.”

Who would not want to know better the woman who raised Jesus, the woman whose total openness to the Holy Spirit makes her the New Eve, the woman who shows that in renouncing our self-will to do the Father’s will, we can be the most generative and creative beings, changing the world from the inside out?

I encourage you to order your copy today. My hope is this book will spark conversations about forgiveness, patience, sacred art, music, and the great mysteries of the faith. I want you, the readers of this post, to know Mary if you don’t already. If you already know her, I want you to know her better every day. If you open your heart to her, Mary will help you grow in faith in God in ways that will surprise you and delight you.

When my co-panelist grabbed the microphone, he said artists should be “transgressive”, by which he explained breaking with norms of how artistic forms existed in the past.

Before I summarize that panel, let me share that I’m writing to you today because a longer form of my answer to this debate was just published by the scholarly journal New Blackfriars. This article is open-access, which means you do not have a subscription to read the article online or download it as a PDF. Read the full article in New Blackfriars here, to learn why the Catholic convert, philosopher and friend of many artists, Jacques Maritain, feared that both surrealism and romanticism had corrupted the Christian view of the artist as divinely inspired.

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I’m publishing this reflection on my article today, March 25th, which is the feast of the Annunciation. When I spoke on the vocation of an artist to artists gathered for the Writing the Light iconography workshop in August 2025, I directed them to a painting of the Annunciation. Mary’s willing cooperation with God’s plans for her body to become the temple of the Holy Spirit is a icon of what an artist is called to do; human cooperation with grace opens artists to divine inspiration. I contrasted that image with the contemporary idea of an artist who is a Promethean figure who steals fire from the gods but then turns his back on the gods in defiance of them. At the end of that talk, I was greeted with hugs and sighs of relief from people who had fled “transgressive” artists’ circles and who sought to use their talents to make beautiful art.

Now, back to Washington, DC, and the David Network, where I eagerly shared Scala’s mission with the room packed with young people, hoping to inspire them with the great calling to be creative in a way that learns from tradition and makes all new things shine the brilliance of the past with the best of today. Boredom, I believe, is fundamentally not knowing how to direct your passions. We can be very, very busy but existentially bored. Knowing I was speaking to future lawyers, doctors, engineers, and CEOs, I challenged them, “Do you have one hour a week to dedicate to learning and practicing something beautiful like music, art, woodwork or gardening?” I know that won’t pay most people’s bills, but it will make us happier, and it will allow us to build a beautiful culture that attracts others to our way of living in harmony with nature and God.

But how many people who call themselves artists and read my co-panelist’s writings on conservatism would self-identify as “transgressive”? The artists I work with through Scala rarely, if ever, self-identify as transgressive. My music teacher told me he would never intentionally be transgressive, as that seems to call attention to his personality, not his music. But this young Catholic convert said, if his music is different, noticeable, and even challenging that’s okay—yet he still needs to know if it is beautiful. This young man left the (dare I say boring?) world of unbelieving music halls to make music that is meaningful and sacred. Perhaps, if he transgresses in his musical practice, it’s a step towards being corrected. Or maybe, just maybe, with a few more attempts, he will pass out of the (perhaps necessary?) adolescent transgressive stage and just be a master of his craft and melt into the shadows as others journey towards God.

The world-famous artists I know such as Jonathan Pageau, Sir James MacMillan and Aidan Hart are neither boring nor transgressive. Anna Bond is a designer and board member of Scala. She co-founded Rifle Paper Co. with her husband Nathan, who is a talented musician and businessman. All of those artists make products admired by millions and bought eagerly in the free market. No one needs to teach anyone why their products are beautiful, it is self-evidently so—the great consensus is that we all want their beautiful products in our homes and churches.

When my panel concluded at the David Network, one after another young person came up to me beaming. “I’m a pianist.” “I’m an actor.” “I paint.” None of them told me they were “transgressive”. They told me they loved the message that all humans are called to co-create beauty with God, and that their love of beauty can renew culture.

If I sound like my husband David in these words, I can’t lie: he has influenced me on this topic. Shamefully, I admit that I once had the same stereotypes of artists as my co-panelist: that artists are transgressive. Perhaps that’s the ethos I imbibed as an undergraduate at Yale from plenty of clove cigarette-smoking, black clad, sad, rebellious artists of all kinds who wanted attention and approval.

My mistaken belief that artists are transgressive was major reason I canceled my first date with David. I was SURE that a self-described artist whose only credentials were math and physics degrees from Oxford University would be awfully boring, snooty, and transgressive all wrapped up in one. Thankfully, he was kind and considerate enough to re-schedule that date when, well, I got bored and wanted to take the risk to meet him.

How wrong, how dreadfully wrong, I was about David. I agreed to a second date with David because I thought I enjoyed learning from him about beauty and art. David drew me back into my own desires to co-create with God, back to my love of music.

Back to the student’s question: why do young conservatives fear being labeled as “boring”? What can be done about it? Perhaps people who proclaim that traditions matter, that social norms around sex aren’t inherently oppressive, and that hope exists in God’s providence fear being marginalized in college dining halls. But if those same conservatives invited others to a beautiful concert, to a long hike, to take an art class from a master, or to sing together, I don’t think they’d be automatically called boring.

I’ve met plenty of college students who confess to me that they are looking for someone to save their young soul from yet another transgressive “bender” of drinking, or who know their happiness doesn’t lie in bed hooking up with a stranger. Too much entertainment is boring us to death, as Neal Postman famously described. Too few conservatives dedicate their talents to making beautiful things that draw others away from the abyss of despair and towards truth, goodness and beauty.

The article I just published is my attempt to ground my views of the vocation of an artist in the scholarly work of Jacques Maritain. In popular parlance, I wrote my article in New Blackfriars to say that I do not think artists are called to be transgressive, if by that we mean in popular parlance that to be a good artist is to “free oneself from tradition” or “reject norms” or “probe the deepest abyss so we can be dark and sad” or “make myself the center of attention while I persuade you that ugliness is as awesome as a sunset.”

My Thesis

I hope I’ve persuaded you to take a few minutes to read my thesis, and if you feel so called, to read the whole paper. I know not everyone agrees with me, and I also believe that, some people incorrectly interpret Maritain’s writings on art and creativity, under-valuing his clearly Thomistic views of humans as co-creating beauty with God.

Here’s my thesis:

“The thesis of this article is that the understanding of the vocation of an artist in the writings of Jacques Maritain emerges as to develop habitus (practical virtues of the intellect) in order to direct their inspirations in order to make beautiful things that convey the spiritual heritage of the nation and the civilization and inspire others to contemplate God. This vocation to be an associate of God in creating beautiful works is a powerful reminder of the close relationship between all personal vocations and the common good.

I also write:

“In order to build a civilization of love, not one of endless absurdities, the vocation of the artist for Maritain must encompass not only communicating their own creative intuitions but also forming the receptive intuition in the hearer or the seer…Maritain concludes Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry by calling on artists to embrace their creative intuition and make objects that assist others in properly ordering their loves.”

I end my paper what is at stake in this debate. We live in a troubled world, and are looking for beauty to lead them to the truth and a good life, not ugliness or mere emotional delight masquerading as an escape from reality. As I wrote in my article:

If the societal threats the Maritains faced, Nazism and communism, no longer threaten civilization as they once did, new forms of Gnosticism that deny the full meaning of the Incarnation – the fusion of the divine and the human – reappear in philosophical, artistic, and political movements and even in theology. As Jacques Maritain well knew and warned, the vocation of the artist understood as egocentric self-expression threatens to become a dark mysticism which misdirects our collective spirit away from a unity of truth, beauty, and goodness and towards nothing but power and domination of others.

Artists create objects that we delight in when we bring those objects into the rooms of our interior castle for contemplation, a contemplation that guides our quest for personal holiness and directs our efforts for the common good of the nation and civilization. The arts are a powerful manner in which God’s presence among us is experienced as a strangeness, like a wound that pierces our hearts and opens us to an intimate friendship with our creator and sustainer.”

I hope this publication is useful to those teaching about the arts in the modern world. Too few articles, in my view, link abstract ideas about art to the human vocation to co-create with God, a vocation which certainly applies to artists.

I encourage you to not only read my piece in New Blackfriars on the vocation of an artist, but to check out all the published papers from the incredible conference that the Scala Foundation co-hosted with Blackfriars Hall and the Margaret Beaufort Institute in July 2025. I don’t recall the words “transgressive” nor “conservative” nor “progressive” every coming up in our wide-ranging discussion of theology and the arts. I’m delighted to share with you our life-giving conversations which should be intelligible to all whose eyes, ears and hearts long for beauty.

Scala was pleased to partner with the Catholic Sacred Music Project for the musical components of this event, which included choral mid-day prayer and a beautiful choral mass. Below is a recording of a choir singing Sir James MacMillan’s motet “Benedicimus tibi” at Blackfriars Hall, during Mass where Sir James was present.

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Never could I have imagined that, the very same week when I finally released publicly some writing about my undercover mission trips to Cuba, the island nation would be undergoing perhaps its most fragile moments since the Communist Revolution that began in 1959.

A few days ago, on March 18th, 2026, Plough magazine published the online version of my memoir of how Mary helped me have the courage to resist the Communist regime when I was searched at the border and then later followed by secret police on the streets of Cuba.

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I am the protagonist, the main character, in the story, but the heroes are the Cuban people who kept the faith alive amidst persecution.

A longer memoir about my experiences with Mary in Cuba will be released on May 5, 2026, by Odysseus, a new imprint of Skyhorse Publishing. The book can be pre-ordered now and will be shipped as soon as it is ready—in time for Mother’s Day 2026!

In this precarious moment in world history, Mary is appearing in unexpected places. My heart sinks every time I read the bad news coming from Cuba. Earlier this week I wrote to my friend, a sacred artist in Havana named Jose, and told him I’d be praying this prayer for him… “Santa Maria…” (Holy Mary….) I couldn’t finish my sentence. No words seemed adequate to express my concerns, but I put my trust in my mother, Mary, to finish my prayer.

I’m convinced that we do not walk alone through the valley of darkness. Nearly seven decades of communist rule in Cuba has not extinguished the faith. The worldly power that claims in public slogans “patria o muerte” (fatherland or death) had not crushed the desire for God in Cuba. I recall watching Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 trip to Cuba. Preaching to thousands gathered in public places covered with images of el Che and Fidel Castro, the pope proclaimed emphatically, “No hay patria sin virtud!!” (There is no fatherland without virtue.)

Here are some selections from my piece in Plough, which in turn is a selection from the full piece in my forthcoming book:

“After landing in Havana, my mother and I drove through the beautiful countryside, searching for El Dolores, a sugar mill her family had operated in a village…After the Cuban Revolution, the church had been converted to a movie theater. Now the building stood vacant; its windows’ empty frames covered with wooden panels. Inside, wild grass grew on the dirt floor.

We were taken to the house of one of the lay Catholics who had not abandoned his faith. Like many in Cuba, his backyard was filled with various knickknacks and random pieces of equipment…

“Las vitrinas!” my mother exclaimed as a tarp was pulled back, revealing two stained glass windows from the church. We admired one window framed by roses. In the artwork, Mary held Jesus on her lap, surrounded by angels and shepherds who were worshiping him…

The second stained glass window spared from the iconoclasm of the Communist revolution depicted Mary standing at the foot of the cross, her hands crossed, her eyes distressed, her heart wrenched with grief…

The salty air and high winds eroded the triumphant faces of the then-still-living Fidel Castro and the long-dead Ernesto “Che” Guevara on walls and billboards across Cuba. Meanwhile, in private homes, I saw no images of Communist heroes. No one spoke of Castro or Guevara as if they were friends. Instead, Mary – depicted as Cuba’s patroness and protectress, Our Lady of Charity – reigned inside Cuban homes. Time and again, people referred to Mary as someone close to them in their struggles.”

Margarita Mooney Clayton, PhD

Founder and Executive Director, The Scala Foundation

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Scala Foundation is a non-profit public charity under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States. All donations to the Scala Foundation are tax-deductible.

As Scala approaches its tenth anniversary in the summer of 2026, my husband David and I have worked hard to re-design Scala’s website. We are grateful for the artistic and technical assistance Carolyn McKinney, who leads Perceptions Studio. Carolyn also improved the look of this online magazine The Graced Imagination, as well as David’s Substack The Way of Beauty.

Since David and I married nearly four years ago, Scala’s mission has developed a unique approach to revitalizing the culture, especially in education and the arts. We will continue to host summer programs, organize public events, produce videos, conferences, books, and interviews, and conduct speaking tours.

In David’s expanded role at Scala as not only our Artist-In-Residence but also our Director of Strategic Partnerships, we are work intensively with students and families in our local community of Princeton to transform their lives through the Way of Beauty and become culture creators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Through partnerships with organizations across the United States and in the United Kingdom, we are sharing the resources we have created to expand our impact through collaborations with key partners.

Would you take a few moments to read our revised mission statement and testimonials of our impact from students, artists, educators and clergy? Please support our mission with a donation today!

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Our Vision

Culture is the DNA that informs every aspect of life through which we find meaning and direction. An ugly culture breeds discontent, uncertainty, and vice. To ensure the youngest generations don’t keep getting drawn into ideological movements, we need to rebuild a beautiful culture.

Winning political arguments and passing legislation cannot replace misery with deep, abiding joy. Political advocacy — though vital — won’t provide the substance needed to live with courage, creativity, integrity, and hope.By reestablishing the architecture of traditional spiritual formation, we can transform hearts and offer hope, joy, and creativity to the world — a creativity that can inform every human activity, from the fine arts to the natural sciences. By pioneering the Way of Beauty process of formation, we have developed a model that transforms lives by cultivating habits for a lifelong practice of joy and creativity in all that we do.

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Our Unique Approach

We face an epidemic of despair—the natural consequence of this widespread alienation from traditional education for divine beauty. Generations of those who have the potential to be inspired doers, thinkers, and creators of a noble culture can neither envision a future where their lives have enduring meaning nor where their work effects lasting good, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation.

The formation we provide does more than change opinions; it changes how people see themselves, empowering them to find joy, meaning, and fulfillment. We inspire people to contribute to the common good through creativity in study and work in the arts and sciences. Through this, people discover joy in the everyday labors of a family and a career.

Transforming Culture through Beauty, Creativity and Joy

Scala exists to challenge a cycle of meaninglessness. By creating paths to an encounter with true beauty – and connecting beauty to personal vocation and the common good – we are reversing the damage done to our culture by an ideology of misery, despair, and anger.

Once, all were formed to love the beautiful order which underlies all classical literature, music, the arts, and the natural sciences. But now, too many are squeezed through soulless technical training programs, pushed into embracing violent political ideologies, and abandoned to a culture of hedonism.

The Way of Beauty Formation Process

The Way of Beauty approach builds upon David’s published books, The Vision for You and The Way of Beauty, and decades of insights from mentorship and small-group fellowships. The weekly fellowship is modeled on John Wesley’s Class Meetings and other Christian fellowships. Our unique approach combines forming habits of faith, prayer, and service with commitment to creating something beautiful each week.

The Way of Beauty is the name given to a process by which we, who have been through it, discovered our true calling in life—what we call our ‘personal vocation’ and through which we discovered the Great Fact—that we have a choice in life. With God’s help, we can choose to be happy or to be miserable.

Our goal is to be happy and to become, more and more, the people God intends us to be. To this end, we aim to lead a joyful, creative, and beautiful life as we progress along the Way of Beauty.”

This is the “Way of Beauty preamble” – a statement read out at the beginning of every Way of Beauty fellowship meeting.

Through this process of spiritual formation, service, and the learning of practical skills in the pursuit of beauty, we discover our personal creative calling and contribute to society beautifully, gracefully, and joyfully, in service of God and neighbour, and for the good of all. The outcome of the Way of Beauty process of formation is to establish new habits that sustain lives of faith, carry them into any field of study or profession, and fuel inspiration and creativity, thereby promoting the common good through beauty. All of this is ordered to a life of faith and joy.

Informing and guiding all human activity, giving it purpose, meaning, and beauty, The Way of Beauty is a process of formation for people of all backgrounds, with any (or no) artistic ability. It is a Christian formation based on what was given to the great artists of the past.

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Cultural Entrepreneurs and Educators

“Thanks to Scala’s programs and Margarita’s personal mentorship, I have found ways to integrate my intellectual work on John Henry Newman and my creative work in film-making and journalism. Scala helped me to build a community of creatives and intellectuals in both the UK and the US.” Dr. Lauren Spohn, graduate of Harvard University, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and Assistant Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Texas in Austin’s School of Civic Leadership.

“In my early attempts at being an icon carver, David Clayton was the first writer to see my potential and promote my work. His articles for the New Liturgical Movement and his blog The Way of Beauty (now on Substack), have been instrumental in rekindling liturgical art in the West. When we launched the Orthodox Arts Journal in 2012, David’s writing on The Way of Beauty and The New Liturgical Movement’s approach were our model and inspiration. His desire to present beauty, proportion, and the creative retrieval and participation in tradition as the true root of art will remain a touchstone in the cultural return to sacred art and the evangelization of the wider culture.” Jonathan Pageau, liturgical artist (see pageaucarvings.com), public speaker, and YouTuber, and noted commentator on contemporary culture; founder of The Orthodox Arts Journal and The Symbolic World podcast, magazine and online learning community.

We Are at a Crossroads

Today’s cultural entrepreneurs are fleeing the mainstream institutions in droves, but they don’t know how to use their talents for the common good. Like the Medicis, patrons of great artists of the Renaissance, with your support, we can build a network of creative leaders in many professions whose work will outlast any election cycle.

Your donation to Scala will empower people to find meaning, and fulfillment and to contribute to the common good through creativity in study and work in the arts and sciences.

The question is not whether you can afford to support Scala. The question is whether you can afford not to. Making your annual or monthly donation to Scala today will catalyze our efforts at cultural renewal.

Margarita Mooney Clayton, PhD

Founder and Executive Director, The Scala Foundation

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Scala Foundation is a non-profit public charity under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States. All donations to the Scala Foundation are tax-deductible.

As we begin Lent, I wanted to share the words of my meditation to a group of students from Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS) about the importance of slowing down our minds to recall we are always in God’s presence. On Monday, February 9th, 2026, at the PTS chapel, we gathered for prayer, and I offered these words, borrowed from a book of meditations I use often, Divine Intimacy.

“Grant me, O Lord, to understand the joy and the responsibility You have given me, in communicating Your life to me: that I may die to self and live solely for Thee.”

We listened to the story of when Jesus Visits Martha and Mary, from Luke 10: 38-42.

³⁸ Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. ³⁹ And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” ⁴¹ But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; ⁴² one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Here is my reflection on this Gospel passage that I shared.

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When listening to these words from scripture, they can seem a bit troubling. But what appears to be the obvious message may not be the message we’re intended to receive. I’m not sure it’s so obvious that this scripture passage is meant simply to somehow help us weigh up how hard one person is working or another, or how we’re supposed to speak to others about what we think they should be doing.

When a scripture passage troubles us or seems unusual, it begs the question: what do we need to think is true about Jesus in this passage in order to make sense of what’s going on?

One of the things that this passage is inviting us to remember and, in fact, to contemplate, is that Jesus was fully human and also fully divine. We know from the Gospels that Jesus had friendships. It’s kind of incredible that God would have close friendships! Jesus’s words are not a harsh rebuke of his friend Martha. His words are more of an invitation to remember that although Christ is intimate to us and close to us, He also divine.

If Christ is divine, and He enters our midst and comes so close to us. But we’re distracted by many things—distracted to the point of calling out other people for not doing what they should be doing. Christ is saying, “What is the one thing necessary?”

We should ponder the words of a contemplative mystic, St. Teresa of Avila, whose works on mysticism and the contemplative life have inspired many saints and many writers and artists. But St. Teresa of Avila was also an incredibly active woman. She entered the Carmelite convent in Spain in 1535, during a time of crisis. Convents were falling under corruption; their life of and their rule of life wasn’t being respected. St. Teresa went on to reform existing convents, and she founded no less than seventeen religious communities. Seventeen communities!

What can take away from this passage that will help us as we begin to enter the time of Lent? If we remember that Christ is divine but has lowered himself to come as intimate to us as entering our own living rooms, one of the things we can take away from this passage is simply the realization that we often don’t see the gifts of Christ right in front of us. We are rightly worried about affairs in our home, affairs in the world, affairs being a student. But the presence of Christ amidst us, this gift, is also a calling to recognize our dignity of being sharers in the divine nature.

I brought a painting with me today, this painting over here by an artist in Havana named Jose Cortes, to remind us of the three-in-one nature of the Trinity. This image is inspired by the hospitality of Abraham. You see Sarah and Abraham who welcomed three strangers into their midst. A famous iconographer named Andre Rublev painted an icon upon which this one is based; this depiction is often thought of as portraying the Trinity, three persons in one.

This image reminds us that we are called to be hospitable, but business and distraction don’t build unity. People long for a hearth, a home, a place of sharing. In this painting, the three figures of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are gathered around a table, which symbolizes an altar. There’s a chalice on the altar, which is symbolic of the Eucharist.

When we think about this passage from scripture that we just heard, do we realize that we are called to partake of the divine life of the Trinity? And is that the one thing that is most important to us?

Jesus appreciates our work. He was a carpenter for 30. But he’s telling us that without taking that time to contemplate the divine in the world, the work that we do in the world won’t always be rooted in Christ.

St. Teresa reflected on how little we profit from the blessings God has granted us. This Scripture passage reminds us how rarely we sit at the feet of Christ to profit from the great blessing of partaking in the divine nature of Christ. Unpracticed at contemplation, our thoughts pursue their habitual paths, and quickly cease pondering the great mysteries of God’s infinite love.

“How can one be free,” St. Teresa of Avila said, “who is separated from the Most High? What harder or more miserable captivity is there than for the soul to have escaped from the hand of its Creator? Happy are those who find themselves laden with strong fetters and chains of the gifts of God’s mercy, so that they are unable to gain the power to set themselves free. O free will, thou art the slave of thine own freedom, unless thou be pierced through with fear and love for Him who created thee.”

A week and a half from now, we begin the liturgical season of Lent. Can we put aside five minutes every day for contemplative prayer? What about 15 minutes? Maybe 30 minutes?

Why is it easy to avoid the silence of contemplative prayer? It could be because, in the silence, it’s difficult to avoid thoughts about the self. St. Teresa counsels us that contemplative prayer must be a habit, a virtue, a discipline.

It’s not easy to contemplate God because the self gets in the way. We get distracted. And rather than worshiping and entering the divine life, our prayers become a list of demands to Christ: “Hey, do this. Tell someone else to do that.”

Jesus cares about our daily needs and worries, but we have forgotten the beauty of the contemplative prayer, of sitting being a partaker in this divine feast, and letting ourselves be changed by the reality that the divine has come into the world.

Ultimately, it’s the intimate encounter with God’s love that gives us the strength and the courage to keep going back out and pursuing our ideals, founding communities, and bringing others together, as St. Teresa of Avila did.

As we concluded the service, we sang together (in Spanish) these words of St. Teresa of Avila:

“Let nothing trouble you; let nothing frighten you. All things are passing; God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing: God alone suffices.”

I concluded the service with these words from St. Teresa of Avila:

“May this self of mine die, and may Another, greater than myself and better for me than myself, live in me, so that I may serve Him.”

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I’m going to Miami for a family reunion of my crazy Cuban family in a week. I love Miami because no one asks me if I’m named after a drink. Everyone knows how to spell and pronounce my name. Margarita, like my mom, my dearly departed abuelita, or my first girlfriend, they might say. Or they might lengthen my name to Maria Margarita. Or Margarita Ana (which happens to be correct). Or they might shorten my name to Maggy, which I love. If they are from Nicaragua, they will certainly recite the first line of Rubén Darío’s poem that starts: Margarita, está linda la mar.

Strangers don’t bother with my name. They just use one of the many generic but affectionate Spanish words for girl, like mama, mami, mamita, reina, princesa, preciosa, muñeca, linda, flaca, guapa, mi amor, mi corazon or mi vida.

Strangers don’t bother with my name. They just use one of the many generic but affectionate Spanish words for girl, like mama, mami, mamita, reina, princesa, preciosa, muñeca, linda, flaca, guapa, mi amor, mi corazon or mi vida.

When I’m around my huge extended family, I’m just la hija de Lala. Why bother with first names at all when, just like in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s epic family tale 100 Years of Solitude, names repeat across generations and branches of the family? There will be at least 5 Margaritas running around my gigantic family reunion at Miami Beach. Not to mention 8 Cristinas, 10 Teresas, 14 Anas, 25 Marias, 5 Javiers, 6 Patricios, 7 Antonios, 9 Manuels, and 12 Carloses.

I vacillate between amusement and pity for the in-laws meeting the crazy Gaston clan for the first time. It’s just like a scene from My Big Fat Greek wedding: ladies with big hair and nails standing around a roasted pig telling you: This is my cousin Carlos, my other cousin Carlos, and my nephew Carlitos. Let’s go sit with Mimi, Bibi, Gigi and Titi. Have you seen Ani, Anita, Ana Maria or Ana Cecilia? Where are Manuel, Manolo, Manolito and Manny? Have you met Beba and Bebo? Have you met Juanito’s wife Juanita?

Then my mom will walk up and say: Hi, I’m Lala. It’s easy to pronounce. Like a song. Lalalalalala. If you compliment her singing voice, she’ll pull out her guitar and sing you Guantamera, Jalisco, or Cielito Lindo. If you are really lucky, she will belt out Cucurrucucu Paloma!!! Lalalalala will hit the high notes on Ay yay yay yay yay so high your ears might pop and you might get kicked out of the hotel lobby. If you join in the ay yay yay yay yay, you have officially joined the clan.

My mom’s real name is Eulalia Maria Suarez Gaston, but I bet her relatives couldn’t tell you her full name. Practically no one in the extended family has a clue about anyone’s real name. No one goes by their real name and on one cares.

American in-laws look puzzled when people introduce themselves saying: My name is Jose but call me Pepito. Or: I’m Kiko, which is short for Francisco. The in-laws then give up trying to make sense of it all when the next person says: I’m Paco, which is also short for Francisco.

This is not magical realism. This is my real crazy Cuban-American family that I love so much gathering a city that makes me come alive like no other.

Epilogue: For a few years, I used Margarita Mooney Suarez as my professional name, but then, after marrying David Clayton in 2022, I dropped Suarez and added Clayton as my new last name. But I don’t expect anyone in my family to bother using such a long name. I hope they just call me guapa, mi amor, mamita, or just “la hija de Lala.”

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