Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
You would be forgiven for thinking that the Pope’s main church is St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. It’s certainly the largest. But no. The Pope’s own church – his episcopal seat as Bishop of Rome – is the church of Saint John Lateran. Which Saint John? Good question. Two of them, actually, for the full name of this church […]
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So. Let’s talk Purgatory. We have to, to make any sense at all out of today’s feast. Today is officially “The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed”, but like most folks, I’ll stick with the simple version – All Souls’ Day. Given the day’s importance in the life of the Church, there’s a lot of history and liturgy – and […]
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Happy Feast of All Saints! This is the day where we celebrate all the saints, known and unknown: the Church Triumphant. We ask them to pray for us. I for one could use all the help I can get! This day has been a feast since the sixth or seventh century, thanks to the abbots of Cluny, and it was […]
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Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising,fair as the moon, bright as the sun,terrible as an army set in array? (Benedictus antiphon, Monastic Office of Lauds for the Assumption) Today’s great Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which in the East is known as the Dormition of the Theotokos, is one that holds a […]
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“I am a Polish Catholic priest. I would like to take the place of this man, since he has a wife and children.” (Saint Maximilian Kolbe, OFM Con., taking the place of fellow prisoner Franciszek Gajowniczek at Auschwitz.) On today’s Vigil of the Assumption, we celebrate also the memory of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan Friar and priest who spent […]
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I often think about Saint Lawrence, the Deacon martyr whose feast is today. Many is the time I’ve sought his intercession. There are so many stories about him that it’s hard to sum him up briefly, although Pope Saint Leo the Great did his best: “The Lord has desired to exalt his glorious name in the world so much that […]
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Today is the Memorial of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Of old, it was the proper Vigil of Saint Lawrence, but we don’t really have proper Vigils in the calendar these days. Both of these great saints suffered martyrdom: Lawrence to the Roman Empire and Teresa Benedicta to Nazi Germany. The Vigil of Saint Lawrence is still celebrated in […]
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Today is the feast of Saint Dominic de Guzmán. He was born near Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain, just north of the Camino, in 1170. Legend has it that before his birth, his barren mother made a pilgrimage to Silos, and dreamt that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a flaming torch in its mouth – and it […]
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Today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, one of the more important (if sometimes overlooked) feasts of the liturgical year. This event definitively revealed the divinity of Christ. It appears in the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36). Two of the witnesses refer to it in their writings, but they do not tell […]
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Today is the Memorial of the dedication of one of my favourite church buildings in the world, the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, also known in English as Saint Mary Major. It is occasionally known by the title of Our Lady of the Snows. When we were in Rome back in 2005, our apartment was just a few […]
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Depending on your particular calendar, today or tomorrow is the feast of Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), a great saint and Doctor of the Church who founded the Redemptorists and wrote on the spiritual life. I particularly enjoy his Way of the Cross and a short book (pamphlet, really) called How to Converse Continually and Familiarly with God. Perhaps because of […]
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Although they are not mentioned in scripture, Tradition remembers the names of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s parents as Saints Joachim and Anne. Today is their feast. May you have all the joy of the day! The names of Saints Joachim and Anne are first recorded in the Protoevangelium of James, written probably in the second century. This is one of […]
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Today is the Feast of Saint James the Greater, known throughout the Spanish-speaking world as Santiago. He was one of Christ’s Twelve Apostles. Saint James is the patron saint of the archdiocese of Seattle. May you have the joy of the feast! James and his brother John were natives of Galilee, sons of the fisherman Zebedee and his wife Salome, […]
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These beautiful and haunting vespers are chanted from the version given in the Codex Calixtinus. Neither Ordinary nor Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, but rather from the Mozarabic Rite. Side chapel in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, 2013 Note: an earlier version of this story erroneously stated that a diocesan patronal solemnity trumps a Sunday in Ordinary Time […]
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Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Mary Magdalen. In the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, this is indeed a feast again, rather than merely a memorial, thanks to a change made by Pope Francis. In the Extraordinary Form and in my Monastic Breviary, it is a Class III feast, through prior to the reform of 1962, it was […]
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Fifty-four years ago today, on July 20, 1969, human beings first set foot upon the Moon. My mother claims I watched the landing, at the tender age of two, hiding underneath the coffee table. If so, I don’t remember it. My lovely bride Francine, however, does. Her birthday is July 21, and she clearly remembers having a lunar module on […]
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On this, the Memorial of Saint Arnulf of Metz (c. 582 — 640), patron saint of brewers, let us hoist a tankard to his memory and say a prayer for his intercession. For some reason, the English found “Arnulf” too difficult, so in many English-language resources he is known as “Arnold”. Go figure. It was July 642 and very hot […]
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