The After Dinner Scholar

Jesus Baptism and Ours with Prof. Kyle Washut

All of Lander including our Wyoming Catholic College Students love Sinks Canyon. The natural beauty is breathtaking and on any given day regardless of the season, you can meet people hiking, rock climbing, fishing, camping, birding, and mountain biking. Once a year, however, you’ll be able to see another unexpected activity: processing, worshipping, and the blessing of the waters.

Our guest this week, Wyoming Catholic College Professor Kyle Washut, reflects on this great feast. 

How and How Not to Be Happy with Dr. J. Budziszewski

While there may be people in this world who don’t care one way or another about happiness, it’s safe to say that most people often say to themselves, “I just want to be happy. Is that too much to ask?”

The question is how to achieve happiness if “achieve” is even the right word.

University of Texas Austin Professor of Government and Philosophy, Dr. J Budziszewski, takes on that question in a new book, How and How Not to Be Happy.

Dr. Budziszewski lectured at Wyoming Catholic College on the topic of that new book and was kind enough to join us for this podcast.

Lumen Gentium and All Saints’ Day with Prof. Kyle Washut

Each year on November 1, we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints, remembering those brothers and sisters in Christ who lives demonstrated heroic virtue and faith. “The Saints,” said Pope Francis, “were not superhuman. They were people who loved God in their hearts, and who shared this joy with others.” And he goes on to say, “To be saints is not a privilege for a few, but a vocation for everyone.”

Perhaps by happy providence, perhaps by cunning design, back in 2017, Wyoming Catholic College professor Kyle Washut was teaching the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium to our seniors just in time for All Saints Day. Here is what he had to say.

Introduction to ”Spe Salvi” by Dr. Michael Bolin

The 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought featured readings on the topic “Mortality and Eternity” including Pope Benedict XVI's 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi.

“The belief that love can reach into the afterlife,” wrote Pope Benedict, “that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today.”

Dr. Michael Bolin gave the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought participants this introduction to Spe Salvi.

Introduction to St. Robert Bellermine’s Sermon on Death by Dr. Scott Olsson

The Book of Hebrews 9:27 reminds us, “it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment.”

St. Robert Bellarmine, had, it seems, a congregation that had, for the most part, forgotten that truth. Their lives were focused on this world, their concern for death and judgment weak, their hearts cold to the things of God and to their faith.

As a good pastor, they needed to be warned. Bellarmine preached four sermons on the four last things: death, judgment, hell, and heaven. At the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought, we read the first of the four, Bellarmine’s sermon on death.

Dr. Scott Olsson gave us this introduction before we broke up into seminar groups to discuss Bellarmine’s words.

Numbering Our Days: Lecture by Dr. Jim Tonkowich

“Teach us to number out days,” sang the psalmist, “that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

This past June 12-17, the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought convened here in Lander. Adult learners came from California, Texas, Louisiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and elsewhere to study great texts on the theme “Mortality and Eternity.”

Our Wyoming Catholic College faculty led the sessions comprised of a short lecture introducing the reading followed by seminars.

This summer, The After-Dinner Scholar will bring you those lectures. And while they are helpful on their own, they will also serve as an introduction to your own study of the texts in the curriculum.

We began Sunday, June 12 with an after-dinner lecture to introduce the week. That night Dr. Jim Tonkowich spoke about Psalm 90.

Dante and The Sin of Ulysses with Prof. Adam Cooper

The eighth circle of Dante’s Hell are the Malabolge, the evil ditches. In the eighth evil ditch false counselors are punished, trapped in flames. Dante the pilgrim asks Virgil his guide about one flame in particular Virgil answers, "Within this flame find torment Ulysses and Diomedes.”

Ulysses is also known as Odysseus who, after conquering Troy, wandered ten years trying to get home to his kingdom of Ithaca, to his father, Laertes, to his beloved wife, Penelope, and to their son Telemachus. After he finally returns to all that was dear to him, Dante tells us, Odysseus succumbed to wanderlust "to gain experience of the world and learn about man’s vices, and his worth."

The voyage did not end well. Death and Hell take him. But did he deserve to be in Hell? Was his sin really as great as all that? 

Prof. Adam Cooper has been teaching Dante helps us understand.

Stay a While: Holy Week and Good Friday with Dr. Jim Tonkowich

There was a time, remarked twentieth century theologian Karl Rahner, when people were “full of life’s joy, satisfied and carefree, and they celebrated Mardi Gras in the streets and laughed the laughter that still came from the heart.  Therefore, they could presumably experience a brief period of recollection, of contemplative seriousness, and of ascetic restraint from life’s luxuries as a beneficial change from everyday life and for the good of the soul.” In such a world, Lent and Holy Week made sense. Dr. Jim Tonkowich asks, "Do they still make sense?"

Sacred Signs and Spiritual Life with Dr. Kent Lasnoski

This is spring Outdoor Week at Wyoming Catholic College and as a result our campus is a bit of a ghost town. Students are spending the week canyoneering, canoeing, rock climbing, hiking, biking, horseback riding, learning to hunt, and producing Shakespeare’s “Richard III.”

As a college, we take educating the bodies of our students as seriously as we take educating their minds and spirits. That’s why, as we approach Palm Sunday and Holy Week, we are rebroadcasting an interview with Dr. Kent Lasnoski about Romano Guardini's book Sacred Signs and the importance of the physical in our spiritual lives.

On the Annunciation with Msgr. Daniel Seiker

 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:26-28)

The 2022 Solemnity of the Annunciation falls on this coming Friday, March 25. That day we remember Gabriel’s visit to Mary, his message, and her response: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And so Mary became the Mother of God and, as she sang in the Magnificat, “all generations will call me blessed.”

Monsignor Daniel Seiker is our Latin rite chaplain here a Wyoming Catholic College tells us about this great holy day for us.