Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, It is now more than ten months since our last parish Mass was celebrated in our parking lot by Archbishop Etienne. Several months ago, the Archbishop announced that the four parishes of Holy Rosary, Saint Ann, Saint Rita, and Visitation would be merging into a new parish, with Saint John of the Woods […]
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Today, it is 400 days since Ash Wednesday of 2020. Your normal Lent is forty days, but this past year with its Plague and its lockdowns and its social distancing was anything but normal. The festivities of Holy Week happened on television and, it seemed, happened to other people. In the midst of our Lenten desert, Easter was a mirage […]
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This weekend, Holy Week begins with the Sunday of Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem – Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. Although Good Friday is coming – the Passion and Death are coming – for the moment, this moment, joy resounds as our King arrives in His city. In most parishes throughout the world, the principal Mass is celebrated by […]
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Yesterday was the Feast of the Transitus of Saint Benedict, the anniversary of his death, in the year of our Lord 547. Of course, yesterday was a Sunday (the fifth of Lent, or Passion Sunday), and so the saint’s feast isn’t celebrated this year. Unless, of course, you are a Benedictine, in which case the feast is bumped, or transferred, […]
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Today on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph in the Year of Saint Joseph, we would do well to meditate on the life of the man who helped raise the Son of God. It can’t have been easy. Tradition holds that Joseph was already an old man and a widower when he married the Blessed Virgin, who was very young, perhaps […]
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If you’re a long time reader, you might be expecting my annual post on Saint Patrick. If you’re interested in that, I encourage you to read last year’s “Saint Patrick was an Englishman“. No, these exceptional times call for something altogether different and briefer. Today, midway through an onerous interview process, I was again passed over for a job. I’ve […]
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This morning the image below appeared as a memory on my Facebook feed. The attached post was to encourage folks to join us for Sunday Lenten Vespers at Holy Rosary. Of course, in the three short years since then, Father Wagner died, the church building was shut down, and finally our parish itself was suppressed. Vespers procession at Holy Rosary, […]
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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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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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As 2020 comes finally to its end, we welcome with hope (and no small amount of trepidation) its sequel, 2021. It’s worth remembering, though, that we are also celebrating some other years as well: holy years. The Year of Saint Joseph Pope Francis has declared a “Year of Saint Joseph” from December 8, 2020 through December 8, 2021. This year […]
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Once again, it’s time for our annual look back at the year that was. And what a year! Plague, lockdowns, crazy elections, murder hornets, you name it! But instead of looking at the crazy out there, we’re concentrating on the crazy in here, in the form of a top ten. Who doesn’t like top ten lists? These are the top […]
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Happy fifth day of Christmas! Today the Church celebrates the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket. Even the White House has released a proclamation for the day. While the history is good, its conclusion – drawing a straight line from Becket to Magna Carta to the U.S. Constitution – is, to be polite, suspect. But that’s politics […]
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Congratulations to my friend Gary Rose and to the twenty other men who were ordained to the Diaconate by Archbishop Etienne this morning! Gary and I served together in the altar server program at Holy Rosary, and five years ago both he and I both applied for consideration to be formed for the diaconate. Gary was chosen, and I was […]
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At Vespers this evening, the season of Advent begins. For many of us, it seems as though we’re still living through a long Lent. Francine and I have more or less been locked down since March, only venturing outside for our daily walks, store expeditions, and church. Yesterday we pulled the “Advent box” out of the garage and began decorating […]
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For many people throughout the world, this year has been a year of loss. The present plague prevents people from gathering and imposes other restrictions on our free-wheeling behaviours. This year, we have cancelled our family Thanksgiving, which we normally hold this weekend. In most places, Mass attendance has been dispensed by our bishops, and in many places access to […]
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Today is the 99th anniversary of the dedication of our former parish church of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. The church, now in danger, was dedicated on November 21, 1921. Here is what the parish history has to say about the event: Nov. 21, 1921 Thanksgiving Day. The new Church building is dedicated by the Most Rev. Edward J. […]
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Today, on the Memorial of Saint John Paul II, I am forcing myself to write. For most of my life, I’ve struggled with – no, “struggled” is too dramatic – I’ve scuffled with recurring mild depression. This will typically manifest itself as lethargy, or nearly manic episodes, or just feeling blue, or some combination or sequence of these. It’s not […]
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