Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
In 2016, Francine and I visited the tomb of Saint Isidore of Seville. Although he is entombed in Spain, it is strangely not in the city of Seville, where he was bishop from AD 601 to 636. No, due to the vagaries of history, the majority of his bones are now in in a silver casket at the high altar […]
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Well that got your attention, didn’t it? It’s not quite true of course; Patrick may have been born on the isle of Britain, but in a time before the Angles had arrived and started making it Angland. No, his family were Roman Catholic churchmen from the Roman Imperial province of Britannia. Today, nobody is going to go around speaking in […]
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Today is both the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, and the fourteenth anniversary of the day I wed my beautiful bride. It is, as I have said before, a “moment when everything changed, celebrated on a day when everything changed”. It’s important to mark those changes in our lives. Francine and I have a funny tradition. When I […]
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Happy twelfth day of Christmas! This year I’ve been terrible about posting for the twelve days of Christmas, but I’ve made a handy list at the end of this article which should catch you up. I hope at least you’re enjoying your twelve drummers drumming! This evening is called Twelfth Night, traditionally the vigil of the Epiphany. In my Monastic […]
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On this day in 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The Professor is 130 today! All around the world, at 9pm local time, the Tolkien Society and the Professor’s many other devotees will celebrate his birthday with a toast to “the Professor”. I will join in, and I encourage you to do the same. The Professor’s writing, […]
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Once again, it’s time for our annual look back at the year that was. And what a year! The plague and lockdowns continued, but instead of looking at the crazy out there, we’re concentrating on the crazy in here – in the form of a top ten. This is now the fifth annual, so I guess it now falls under […]
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a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien Grim was the world and grey last night:The moon and stars were fled,The hall was dark without song or light,The fires were fallen dead.The wind in the trees was like to the sea,And over the mountains’ teethIt whistled bitter-cold and free,As a sword leapt from its sheath. The lord of snows upreared his head;His mantle […]
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Today is Lucy’s Day! No, not that one. Saint Lucy was a Sicilian martyr. She was a wealthy young lady of Greek extraction brought up by Christian parents. She was killed during the horrific persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian in about 304. The facts surrounding her martyrdom have accreted so many legends that it’s difficult to be sure exactly what […]
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Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (d. 06 December 343) Happy Saint Nicholas Day! How Saint Nicholas was transmogrified into Santa Claus, I’ll never know. “Jolly Old Saint Nick” was by all accounts a thin man, most famous for giving gifts to prostitutes and punching heretics. That whole “eight tiny reindeer” thing seems like a bit of a come down. Wait, […]
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Several years ago, The Catholic Herald published an article on one of today’s lesser known saints that absolutely delights me: Blessed Lucy of Narnia. Of all the great characters from children’s literature, who better to have a namesake to intercede for us in heaven? (At least, in the absence of a St Bofa of Sofa.) After all, it was she, […]
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I have not been keeping up with my annual posts on the saints, and for this I apologize. Today is the 606th anniversary of King Henry V’s famous victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt. As Shakespeare reminds us in his Henry V, this battle took place on the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian. May you have […]
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I still remember the crowing of the rooster in the cathedral. My introduction to Santo Domingo de la Calzada came on my first Camino. There’s a town early on named for him that contains a cathedral dedicated to him. Today is his feast day, so it might be good to learn something about him – and his chickens. He was […]
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“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” (G.K. Chesterton) Saint George of Lydda (Eastern Version) Today’s feast is of the martyr Saint George. Pious legends of dragon slaying notwithstanding, George was a soldier of the Roman army who was killed during the persecutions […]
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Near the beginning of our virtual Camino, February 2020 Yesterday my beautiful bride Francine and I finished walking our virtual Camino from Lourdes to Santiago, a distance of roughly 957km. You’ve heard of staycations? This was a staymino. It took us just over a year. At least I got one thing accomplished during lockdown! We mostly walked around our neighbourhood […]
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Sometime in early June 1977, in a small theater in Hegewisch Illinois, I saw Star Wars for the first time. My grandfather took my sister and I after we were too bored just walking in the woods. I was ten, and she was seven. I maintain that this is the best age range to be introduced to the Star Wars […]
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Today was once one of the most solemn feasts of the year. It’s gone by several names over the millennia: the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Candlemas. Coming forty days after Christmas, it was even once the end of the Christmas season. Even today there are relics of […]
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Today is both the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, and the thirteenth anniversary of the day I wed my beautiful bride. It is, as I have said before, a “moment when everything changed, celebrated on a day when everything changed”. For reasons too long to go into here, thirteen has always been our “lucky number”, so it’s quite […]
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