Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Mary’s month of May draws to a close with the Feast of the Visitation. This feast celebrates the visit of Mary, pregnant with Jesus, to her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist (Luke 1:39-56). So this feast is a celebration of the very first Christian community, consisting of two pregnant mothers and their unborn children. Saint Luke’s account culminates […]
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On this day in 1431, one of the most truly remarkable women who ever lived was burned at the stake. She was 19 years old. She was known as Jehanne la Pucelle (Joan the Maiden), but today we name her Saint Joan of Arc. Saint Joan at Holy Rosary, Tacoma She was canonized in 1920, and her memorial was first […]
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Join me in praying the Novena to the Holy Spirit in these nine days before Pentecost! PDF booklet available for download: Novena-to-the-Holy-SpiritDownload
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On this day in 1917, the Blessed Virgin began appearing to three shepherd children in Fátima, Portugal. She appeared on the thirteenth day of six consecutive months, culminating in the great Miracle of the Sun. Regardless of miracles, Catholics are not obliged to believe these “private revelations”. Indeed, the Church is very careful to investigate these sorts of claims with […]
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Mary’s month of May begins with a day for her husband. Today, celebrated around the world as “International Workers’ Day” is the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. There’s poetry to the fact that the month dedicated to the Blessed Virgin begins by putting the focus on her husband, and therefore on their family life. Imagine the Holy Family of […]
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With all due respect to Saint Catherine of Siena, one of my favourite saints and whose feast day is celebrated today on the calendar of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today (at least on the Benedictine calendar!) is the feast of four great Abbots of the Benedictine Order: Saints Odo, Majolus, Odilo, and Hugh. They were all good […]
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On April 25, 1467 a mysterious icon of Virgin and Child appeared in a small unfinished and roofless church in the town of Genazzano, near Rome. As the story goes, the entire town had turned out for the annual feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, a multitude of witnesses saw a mysterious cloud […]
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John Mark was one of the original seventy disciples (Luke 10:1 ff). Tradition holds that he was one of those who left Christ when he preached on the Bread of Life (John 6:44-6:66). Saint Peter brought him back to the faith. He traveled with Paul and Barnabas, who thought him unreliable (Acts 15:37-41). Again he left, again he came back […]
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Several weeks ago, I was struck by the thought of carrying others with me on my long Camino this autumn. Now I know what you’re thinking. Sounds a little odd, yes? Perhaps the easiest way to clarify is to quote from the note to myself that I wrote back on April 3rd: I’d like to walk this Camino – all […]
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Today, the Second Sunday in the Octave of Easter, is also known as Divine Mercy Sunday. Pope John Paul II proclaimed the Sunday after Easter as the Sunday of the Divine Mercy (Dominica II Paschæ seu de divina misericordia) in accord with the visions of the Divine Mercy received by Saint Faustina. But what is the Divine Mercy? In short, […]
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For the Order of Saint Benedict, today is the Solemnity of the Transitus of Saint Benedict, the anniversary of his death and birth into life eternal, in the year of our Lord 547. Of the transitus, Benedict’s biographer Pope Saint Gregory the Great writes: The same year in which he departed this life, he told the day of his holy […]
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Today on the transferred Solemnity 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 16 or so. He had […]
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On this, the tenth anniversary of the papacy of Pope Francis, join me in praying this ancient prayer for the Pope. It has been frequently set to music, including in the venerable Liber Usualis. V. Let us pray for Francis, the Pope.R. May the Lord preserve him, give him a long life, make him blessed upon the earth, and may the […]
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I can’t speak for anybody else, but I need all the help I can get. As a writer, I often find that I love having written much more than actually writing. I distract myself easily. It doesn’t help, I suppose, that I tend to write in bursts, like I’m emptying my brain. Then I rather need to recharge the brain […]
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Happy Saint Agnes Day! Saint Agnes was a young Roman lady of 12 or 13 years old who suffered martyrdom in the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian in about AD 304. She was one of the youngest of the early martyrs and one of the most moving and articulate. Agnes hastened to the place of torture as a bride to […]
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Today is the feast of the man many consider to be the founder of Christian monasticism, Saint Anthony the Great of Egypt, the “Father of Monks”. He was born in the middle of the third century in decidedly Pagan Middle Egypt to a well-to-do, comfortable family. He spent much of his life avoiding the sorts of comforts available to him […]
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