Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
On this day in 1204, one of the worst atrocities against Christendom was perpetrated by … Christians. I refer, of course, to the sack of Constantinople. This atrocity was committed to satisfy Venetian commercial interests, who were owed a great deal of money by the Crusaders for transportation. In so doing, they destroyed one of the great bulwarks against the […]
» Read moreVia the inestimable Fr. Z comes a Communiqué from the SSPX asking for prayers: Communiqué from the General House of the Society of Saint Pius X Since the meeting on March 16, 2012, with Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, has […]
» Read moreThis afternoon at Mass, the priest took the rather unusual step of preaching the Pope’s homily from his Mass in Cuba. He said that although it was intended as a call to arms for those suffering under the Cuban-Castro-Communist regime, it might just as well be a wake-up call to us here in the United States. Here’s the part he […]
» Read moreThe Holy Father continues to woo the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). Monsignor Nicola Bux, a consultor to the CDF and confidant of the Pope, has written an open letter to Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior of the SSPX, and to the Society’s priests. It seems to have the Pope’s intentions behind it. This can only be described as […]
» Read moreIt’s no secret, I suppose, that I’m something of an anglophile. So please forgive this foray into Great Britain. This year, Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Diamond Jubilee – 60 years on the British throne. Today, her Majesty addressed parliament, saying in part, As today, it was my privilege to address you during my Silver and Golden Jubilees. Many of […]
» Read moreWell 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 […]
» Read moreTurns out that there are exemptions in the new HHS regulations for the Amish and for members of Medi-Share, a program of Christian Care Ministry. But not for Catholics. Source: USCCB
» Read moreOn this day in 1600, the priest, theologian, sometime Dominican friar, philosopher, and early proponent of heliocentrism, Giordano Bruno, was burned at the stake in Rome for the crime of heresy by the city’s civil authorities. His ashes were dumped into the Tiber river. My primary interest in Bruno is that I once lived in a house that he once […]
» Read moreBy now some of you might be thinking that the O Antiphon words might be sounding kind of familiar, even though you’re not really up on your Gregorian Chant. In fact, these antiphons are some of the earliest attested antiphons in the Divine Office, being mentioned in passing in the works of Saint Boethius in the early sixth century. The […]
» Read moreToday I’m going to upset some of my (Protestant) Christian friends who see the Reformation as a good thing. I don’t. Here is one of many, many reasons why. December 1 is the feast of Saint Edmund Campion, a Jesuit martyr. The matter-of-fact beginning to his entry on Wikipedia reads as follows: Saint Edmund Campion, S.J. (24 January 1540 – […]
» Read moreFifty-six years before the English Puritain refugees at Plymouth celebrated their “first Thanksgiving”, Spanish explorers and their Timucua allies celebrated one in Saint Augustine, in what is now Florida. They had bean soup. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was a Spanish admiral under orders to root out some French colonists in the area. Sighting land in La Florida on 28 August […]
» Read moreEnter the KING WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work to-day! KING. What’s he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; If we are mark’d to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater […]
» Read moreThis is this past Sunday’s first reading, which I read at Mass, from the 45th Chapter of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah: Thus says the LORD to his anointed, Cyrus, whose right hand I grasp, subduing nations before him, and making kings run in his service, opening doors before him and leaving the gates unbarred: For the sake of […]
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Back in high school, a group of us did an extensive report on the events of this day for my freshman history class. We had flip chart maps, reenactments, and gave three separate papers. For on this day in 1571, the naval forces of a Holy League, consisting of several maritime Catholic countries, met the main Ottoman fleet at the […]
» Read moreO God of love, compassion, and healing, look on us, people of many different faiths and traditions, who gather today at this site, the scene of incredible violence and pain. We ask you in your goodness to give eternal light and peace to all who died here— the heroic first-responders: our fire fighters, police officers, emergency service workers, and Port […]
» Read moreOn July 20, 1969, man first set foot upon the Moon. On July 20, 2011, the last flight of the last Space Shuttle is heading to a close. Perhaps appropriately, the (hopefully temporary) ending of the US manned space flight was aboard Shuttle Atlantis. It certainly gave me a sinking feeling. But the project that took us to the Moon […]
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“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending.” (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit) This week, I’ve been thinking about endings – the end of empires, of eras, of fragile human lives. The last Habsburg Crown Prince died this week. The official notice read in part: Otto von Habsburg, eldest son of the last regnant Emperor of Austria and […]
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