Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Today is the feast of Saint Benedict of Nursia, who can safely be said to be the father of western monasticism. His monastic Holy Rule, still followed today after almost 1,500 years, spread throughout the west as the Roman Empire collapsed. Pope Pius XII lauded him, for in the perilous times that followed Rome’s fall, it was Benedictine monks who […]
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Today the Church celebrates one of her most ancient feasts, commemorating the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul. I prayed at the tombs of these apostles during our pilgrimage to Rome in 2005. Icon of Saints Peter and Paul Peter With the body of Saint John Paul II mere feet from me, I knelt near Saint Peter’s tomb at the […]
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A post-Protestant friend of mine has a particular fondness for that great Doctor of the Church, Saint Irenæus of Lyons, whose feast day is today. He occasionally quotes from the saint’s great work, Adversus Hæreses (Against Heresies), and he is particularly fond of the saint’s assertion that “the proper glory of God is man fully alive.” He refers to the […]
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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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Sir Thomas More(by Hans Holbein the Younger) Today is the memorial of one of my favourite saints, Saint Thomas More, who died at the hands of King Henry VIII (that villain). That is, today is his memorial in the modern Roman calendar, which he shares with Saint John Fisher, also executed by the same king. In my Benedictine ordo, however, […]
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The Lord manifests Himself to those who stop for some time in peace and humility of heart. If you look in murky and turbulent waters, you cannot see the reflection of your face.If you want to see the face of Christ, stop and collect your thoughts in silence, and close the door of your soul to the noise of external […]
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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 and holy men, and during the course of their reigns over the Abbey of Cluny and its associated priories, they reformed western monasticism – indeed, it could be fairly said that together […]
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In 2016, Francine and I visited the tomb of Saint Isidore of Seville. Although he is entombed in Spain, it is strangely not in the city of Seville, where he was bishop from AD 601 to 636. No, due to the vagaries of history, the majority of his bones are now in in a silver casket at the high altar […]
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For the Order of Saint Benedict, today is the Feast of the Transitus of Saint Benedict, the anniversary of his death, in the year of our Lord 547. Of this event, his biographer Pope Saint Gregory the Great writes: The same year in which he departed this life, he told the day of his holy death to his monks, some […]
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Well 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 […]
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Today is the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter. Now, you might be thinking, “a feast for a piece of furniture?” Read on! Most folks have seen some variation of this photo of Bernini‘s “Chair of Peter” in the Vatican. It’s a masterpiece of baroque art, found in every art textbook covering the period. The chair in question is […]
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Saint Benedict was the founder of western monasticism; to this day, most monks and nuns worldwide follow some variation of his “Little Rule for Beginners“. Benedict had a twin sister, Scholastica, whose feast day is today. Under her brother’s guidance, she founded the first female monastery in the west. I often think that their parents had a sense of humour, […]
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Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one.(J. Michael Straczynski, “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars“) Today is the Feast of the Universal Doctor of the Church and one of my name Saints, Thomas Aquinas. When (certain) people, told of my conversion, said to me “oh, you’re Catholic […]
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Today is both the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, and the fourteenth 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”. It’s important to mark those changes in our lives. Francine and I have a funny tradition. When I […]
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Happy Saint Agnes Day! Saint Agnes was a young Roman lady of 12 or 13 who suffered martyrdom in the persecutions of Diocletian in about the year 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 her wedding feast. […]
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Happy seventh day of Christmas! Today the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Sylvester I, pope and confessor. He was born in the southern Italian town of Sant’Angelo a Scala to two Roman citizens, Rufinus and Justa. He was ordained by Pope Saint Marcellinus just before the persecutions of Diocletian got underway. He survived those years of terror and saw […]
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Saint Sabinus preaching the Gospel before the governor Venustian Happy sixth day of Christmas! Today is the first day of the Christmas Octave that is not otherwise also a solemnity, feast, or memorial. That does not mean, however, that there aren’t other saints we could celebrate today in some form. Today might be a good time to talk about the […]
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