Ben Novak arrived today from Ave Maria and is staying with me this week, visiting Washington for Catholic University’s 2019 Novak Symposium that’s happening on Tuesday. We spent this afternoon enjoying Georgetown in beautiful, nearly spring weather with a walk along M Street, a stop in Le Pain Quotidien, a visit to Amazon Books, and a St. Patrick’s Day dinner at Clyde’s.

After we toasted over an Old Fashioned and a Guinness, we prayed the first stanza of the Belloc-inspired “Benedicamus Domino”:

Where’er the Catholic sun doth shine
There’s laughter and there’s good red wine
at least I’ve always found it so
Benedicamus Domino