Holy Week Marathon

I joke sometimes that Holy Week for an MC is like running a marathon. So this year, I used my FitBit tracking and figured out the distance I walked, starting with our Palm Sunday rehearsals and ending on Easter Sunday. This year, I clocked about 70km – that’s 43 miles. Given that a marathon is 26 miles, I actually walked […]

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Maundy Thursday:
Do This in Memory of Me

The Season of Lent comes to its end this evening, as we celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. This celebration commemorates the institution of the Eucharist, the source and summit of Church life. Unlike most Protestants, the Catholic and Orthodox (and others of the Apostolic Tradition) believe that God is really there, wholly present in the consecrated bread and […]

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Schedule for Holy Week

The following is the Holy Week schedule for the parishes of Holy Rosary and Visitation in Tacoma, Washington. It’s less jam-packed than previous years, but there’s still a lot here! Wednesday Tenebræ is not to be missed. And of course, the Holy Triduum is essentially one giant liturgy (with some serious overnight breaks) that begins with the Introit of the […]

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Missale Romanum at Fifty… plus one

A good friend pointed out to me that my post yesterday on the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae was a little darker than perhaps I intended. This is a fair comment. I may have been in a slightly grumpy mood yesterday. Even five years ago, the idea of a “new liturgical movement” to restore the […]

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Missale Romanum at Fifty

NOTE: Particularly if this article leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, you’ll want to read the follow-up. It is a sort of apologia. Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae by Pope Saint Paul VI in his Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum. There is, so far as I can tell, no mention of this […]

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Jubilate Deo!

In April of 1974, Pope Saint Paul VI issued a small book called Jubilate Deo containing various Latin chants. Copies were sent as “a personal gift” to all the Bishops of the world. In the accompanying letter from the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, we read, In presenting the Holy Father’s gift to you, may I at the same time […]

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Sedimus et Flevimus

Feeling rather melancholy this evening, and one of the psalms from Vespers particularly struck home. Super flumina Babylonis ibi sedimus et flevimus : * cum recordaremur Sion : In salicibus in medio ejus * suspendimus organa nostra. Quia illic interrogaverunt nos, qui captivos duxerunt nos, * verba cantionum : Et qui abduxerunt nos : * Hymnum cantate nobis de canticis […]

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A Plea for Beauty in the Sacred Liturgy

Superman fights for “truth, justice, and the American way!” We should fight for the three transcendentals: truth, beauty, and goodness. The transcendentals were known to the Ancient Greeks, but Catholic theologians quickly baptized them into their study of philosophy and theology. Transcendentals are the timeless and universal attributes of being. They are the properties of all beings, as well as […]

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Our 2018 in Review

This has been a crazy year. Here at Pistachio House, we had designated 2018 as the “Year of Hygge“. This was going to be the year that we concentrated on coziness. Pistachio House would be finally made into the cozy home we imagined. There would be coffee cake, walks, and new furnishings. It started out strongly enough, and it certainly […]

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O Emmanuel

We come to the last of the O Antiphons, for tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the great Vigil of the Nativity. I mentioned yesterday that the O Antiphons were arranged backward into the song Veni, Veni Emmanuel. This was by design, for the Antiphons themselves are a backward acrostic. The first letters of the Messianic titles — Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, […]

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O Rex Gentium

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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