Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
At last we come to the final O Antiphon, for tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the great Vigil of the Nativity. This year, of course, is complicated by the fact that it’s also the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Remember to go to Mass for both! Meanwhile, Emmanuel: We adore Thee, O Emmanuel! in this Thy journey, and we reverence the fidelity […]
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With Christmas just days away now, we hear the penultimate O Antiphon this evening. I mentioned a couple of days ago that the antiphons might sound vaguely familiar to you. In the 12th Century, an unknown composer compiled versions of the O Antiphons into a single Advent hymn, called Veni, Veni Emmanuel. You know the English version as O Come, […]
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It is altogether right and proper that we should celebrate Christ as the bringer of light on this, the day of the winter solstice. This was an ancient holy day in many religions, as indeed it continues to be. On this, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, where people for eons have begged their divinity for […]
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Continuing on with our annual tradition, we come closer and closer to the birth of the Messiah, “the holy one, the true, who holds the key of David, who opens and no one shall close, who closes and no one shall open”. The key is the symbol of authority. Christ is the Key of the House of David who opens […]
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By now some of you might be thinking that the O Antiphon words are 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. They’re rooted […]
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Today is the second “O” antiphon, O Adonai. For a reflection on this antiphon, we will turn to that great liturgical commentator, Servant of God Dom Prosper Guéranger, Abbot of Solesmes (d. 1875). O Sovereign Lord! O Adonaï! come and redeem us, not by thy power, but by thy humility. Heretofore, thou didst show thyself to Moses thy servant in […]
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O Wisdom! Advent is drawing to its close, and it’s time again for our annual look at the O Antiphons. These antiphons are part of the prayers at the liturgical hour of Vespers (evening prayer) for the 17th through the 23rd of December – the 24th is of course the Christmas Vigil itself. They are ancient prayers, possibly dating back […]
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This weekend we celebrate the great feast of Christ the King. Traditionally here at Pistachio House, we have had our “Franksgiving” feast on this day. This year, due to the vagaries of the calendar, we actually had our feast last week. No matter. And it is right that we celebrate God’s bounty and God’s blessings in our lives. But today, […]
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Appropriate to today – the Feast of All Souls of the Benedictine Order – we once again have the Dies Iræ, the traditional sequence for Requiem Masses and the Masses of All Souls. Today we pray for the souls of all Benedictine monks, nuns, sisters, and oblates in purgatory. Servant of God Thomas of Celano Most probably written by […]
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Once again we come to a feast of All Saints. “But wait!” I hear you cry, “wasn’t that back on the first of November?” Right you are! But today on the Benedictine calendar is the feast of All Saints of the Benedictine Order. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside […]
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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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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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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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Tomorrow is the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, so today is Saint John’s Eve. Throughout much of Europe, the tradition on this day is to light bonfires. Here’s ours from back in 2015. Saint John’s Eve, 2015 Not much of a bonfire, strictly speaking. This year’s figures to be much larger – I’ve got some old […]
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