Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Today is the “Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels” or, in the old calendar, the “Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Michael the Archangel”. Whatever you call it, the most common name is Michaelmas. It is one of several harvest festivals celebrated throughout Christian Europe. So happy Michaelmas! In England this is one of the “quarter days”, which […]
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Saint Hildegard of Bingen is one of those medieval figures who can cause a lot of confusion to people not paying close attention. She (or, rather, a version of her with her Christianity stripped out) has been adopted by some of the New Agers as one of their own. Of course, if you strip the Christianity out of the life […]
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Only a handful of Popes ever get named “Great”. Today in the Ordinary Roman calendar is the feast of one of them, Pope Saint Gregory the Great, confessor and doctor of the Church (540 – 604). His feast, originally celebrated on the day of his death on March 12, is one of several moved from Lent to other parts of […]
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Today is one of the more interesting feasts on the liturgical calendar, for today is the feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. OK, nowadays they’ve slightly sanitized the name; it’s now officially called the “Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist”, but for the sheer Catholic joy of calling a spade a spade, I’m sticking […]
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Today is the feast of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. And at this moment in the history of the Church, we could very much use another like him. Born in 1090 to a noble Burgundian family near Dijon, he entered the monastery at age 23. In less than three years, he was sent by his abbot to found a new monastery […]
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I often think about Saint Lawrence, the Deacon martyr whose feast is today. Many is the time I’ve sought his intercession. There are so many stories about him that it’s hard to sum him up briefly, although Pope Saint Leo the Great did his best: “The Lord has desired to exalt his glorious name in the world so much that […]
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Today is the Memorial of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Of old, it was the proper Vigil of Saint Lawrence. Both of these great saints suffered martyrdom, Lawrence to the Roman Empire and Teresa Benedicta to Nazi Germany. The Vigil of Saint Lawrence is still celebrated in my monastic breviary, albeit in a very peculiar fashion. Rather than praying […]
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Today is the feast of Saint Dominic de Guzmán. He was born near Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain, just north of the Camino, in 1170. Legend has it that before his birth, his barren mother made a pilgrimage to Silos, and dreamt that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a flaming torch in its mouth – and it […]
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Depending on your particular calendar, today or tomorrow is the feast of Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), a great saint and Doctor of the Church who founded the Redemptorists and wrote on the spiritual life. I particularly enjoy his Way of the Cross and a short book (pamphlet, really) called How to Converse Continually and Familiarly with God. The traditional readings […]
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Although they are not mentioned in scripture, Tradition remembers the names of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s parents as Saints Joachim and Anne. Today is their feast. May you have all the joy of the day! This is also the last time that Saint Ann parish in Tacoma will be able to celebrate their patronal feast. On July 31, just a […]
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Fifty-three years ago today, on July 20, 1969, human beings first set foot upon the Moon. My mother claims I watched the landing, at the tender age of two, hiding underneath the coffee table. If so, I don’t remember it. My lovely bride Francine, however, does. Her birthday is July 21, and she clearly remembers having a lunar module on […]
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Saint Bonaventure, whose memorial is today in the Ordinary Form, received his (much delayed) doctorate in theology in Paris in 1257, in the same class as Saint Thomas Aquinas. Later that same year, he was elected Minister General of the Franciscan Order. Bonaventure spent much of his life as a theologian at the university, living in poverty as a Franciscan […]
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I’m going to go out on a limb and say that vanishingly few American churches have an image of today’s saint. But our old parish of Holy Rosary does. Let me explain. It’s a pretty rare thing when Kings become saints, or at least become canonized saints. I can only think of a handful off the top of my head, […]
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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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