The After Dinner Scholar

The Eucharist and Wyoming Catholic College with Dr. Jeremy Holmes

This podcasts is "about the Great Books and the liberal arts," something that sets The After-Dinner Scholar apart from other audio blogs from Wyoming Catholic Collage.

Case in point, the college has launched a new podcast entitled “The Eucharist with Wyoming Catholic College” inspired by conversations about the National Eucharistic Revival.

The podcast features Wyoming Catholic College President Kyle Washut and, our guest, theology professor and academic dean, Dr. Jeremy Holmes.

About Infinity with Dr. Scott Olsson

The number of integers (1, 2, 3, 4, and so on) is infinite. And oddly enough so is the number of even integers (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and beyond). Meaning that the number of even integers is equal to the number of all integers, both odd and even. Welcome to infinity.

While it’s still winter, it’s not too early to think about Wyoming Catholic College’s summer PEAK program for high school juniors and seniors. In it we give them a taste of life at the college including backpacking, horseback riding, Catholic worship and devotion, and classes complete with homework and tests. Not only do high school students enjoy the two weeks of PEAK, but they walk away with a pretty good idea of what it would be like to come to college here at Wyoming Catholic. Many decide that it would be wonderful and join us as freshmen.

Mathematician Dr. Scott Olsson has taught a course at PEAK on infinity. And I asked Dr. Olsson to give us a finite preview of infinity. (To learn more about PEAK 2024, click here.)

Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism with Dr. Tiffany Schubert

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures,” remarks Anne Eliot in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. “None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”

It is always a great pleasure on the After-Dinner Scholar to introduce you to books written by our faculty and Dr. Tiffany Schubert’s book, Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism: Courtly Love and Happy Endings, has just been released.

Freshmen in the Snow with Mr. Karl Eby

While you and I sit by a delightful fire—or at least (assuming you live in a cool climate)—delightful central heating, our Wyoming Catholic College freshmen are spending a few nights in their Quinzees: giant mounds of snow, hollowed out to form shelters.

That seems an odd way to prepare for a rigorous second semester of Latin, theology, philosophy, humanities, math, and science. Yet we consider snow camping a vital part of a Wyoming Catholic College education.

Karl Eby, Wyoming Catholic College class of 2013 is the Assistant Director of our Outdoor Leadership Program sheds a little light on the Freshman Winter Trip.

Aristotle on Friendship with Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos

“Social connection,” wrote U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in  his May 2023 “Advisory on our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” “is a fundamental human need, as essential to survival as food, water, and shelter. Throughout history, our ability to rely on one another has been crucial to survival.”

That may come as news to many modern Americans, but back in the fourth century BC Aristotle would have told you the same things. Friendship, he wrote in his Nichomachean Ethics, “is not only a necessary thing but a splendid one. We praise those who love their friends, and the possession of many friends is held to be one of the fine things of life.”

Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos recently taught The Nichomachean Ethics with our Wyoming Catholic College juniors and looking at, among other things, friendship.

A Christmas Week Full of Martyrs with President Kyle Washut

This podcast was posted on December 26, the day after Christmas. It was the commemoration of St. Stephen’s martyrdom described in Acts chapter 7. On the 27^th, we remember St. John, the only apostle who was not martyred. The 28^th is the memorial of the Holy Innocents who were murdered by King Herod in his attempt to kill Jesus. And finally on Friday, we remember the martyrdom of St. Thomas a Becket.

Why do we do that during Christmas week? Wyoming Catholic College President Kyle Washut clarifies it for us.

Pondering the Incarnation of the Divine Son with Dr. Jeremy Holmes

During the first weeks of Advent, the Church directs our attention to the second advent of Christ, that day when he will come again in glory to gather his people into his resurrection, remake this tired, sinful world, and set all wrongs right. When he “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain" (Revelation 21:4).

In this last week, we focus on his first coming as the babe of Bethlehem, his coming into our world of tears, death, morning, and crying.

Theologian Dr. Jeremy Holmes in his personal spiritual life, in his scholarship, in the classroom, and in his book Cur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Word has spend a great deal of time considering the mystery of the Incarnation, of God become flesh.

Morten Lawridsen's "O magnum mysterium," which Dr. Holmes mentioned, can be found here.

Music at Christmas with Mr. Paul Jernberg

The music coming over the air—for those who still listen to the radio—and in various Christmas mixes from Pandora, Apple Music, Spotify, and so on tends to be a wild and wooly mix including everything from “O Holy Night” to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” It’s a mishmash of worship, good theology, horrible theology, family, home, childhood, greed, and, of course, romance.

As we try to sort it all out, here are some thoughts from Wyoming Catholic College’s choir director and composer-in-residence, Paul Jernberg.

Virgil’s ”Aeneid” with Dr. Tiffany Schubert

Virgil's Aeneid tells us about the founding of Rome and begins with the destruction of Troy at the end of the Trojan War, the war recounted in The Iliad. As the Greeks burn and sack Troy, Aeneas escapes with his father, his son, his household gods, and a small band of fellow refugees to found a new Troy—greater, more powerful, and more magnificent than the old Troy—in Italy.

Dr. Tiffany Schubert has been teaching The Aeneid to our Wyoming Catholic College sophomores.

Jesus Christ, King of the Universe with Dr. Kent Lasnoski

Last Sunday was the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe which was instituted by Pope Pius XI with his 1925 encyclical Quas Primas (In the First) as a response to “those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society, in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin.”

 Rather than sounding nearly 100 years old, Pius’ words sound as though they were written yesterday. Theologian Dr. Kent Lasnoski discusses why we need to pay a bit more attention to this last Sunday in the Church year as we prepare for Advent.