Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Today the Church celebrates one of her oldest feasts, commemorating the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul. I prayed at the tombs of these apostles during our pilgrimage to Rome in 2005. Peter With the body of Saint John Paul II mere feet from me, I knelt near Saint Peter’s tomb at the high altar of the dark and nearly […]
» Read more
Tomorrow being the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, today is Saint John’s Eve. Throughout much of Europe, the tradition on this day is to light bonfires. Here’s ours. Not much of a bonfire, strictly speaking, but we do live in the city after all! We almost didn’t get to have one at all – it was […]
» Read more
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, it is no such thing – you’d […]
» Read more
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 […]
» Read more
Vatican Radio is reporting that Pope Francis has raised the Memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene to the rank of a Feast. This puts the celebration of the “Apostle to the Apostles” on par with those of the men to whom she announced the Resurrection. In a letter announcing the change, the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the […]
» Read more
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. In 1429 at the tender age of 17, she led the French army to a string […]
» Read more
Today in the calendar of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and on the Benedictine Calendar is the feast of this blog’s patron, Saint Bede the Venerable. For no reason that I understand, in 1970 his feast was moved to the day before yesterday. This sort of silly confusion should really be cleared up. One calendar for the Roman […]
» Read more
Today in the calendar of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite is the feast of this blog’s patron, Saint Bede the Venerable. This amazing man was a Benedictine monk, priest, historian, and a Doctor of the Church, all while dealing with Viking attacks. I took the name Bede when I made my final oblation as a Benedictine. Bede occupies […]
» Read more
During Lent, I am often reminded of this, one of my favourite stories from the Desert Fathers: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my […]
» Read more
Here’s an insight into how my mind works. As I was walking in to work one morning a couple of years ago, commuter coffee mug firmly in hand, it suddenly struck me: the reason we call coffee “joe” is because it gets us through our morning, much as Saint Joseph got his foster-son Jesus through the “morning” of his life. […]
» Read more
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 […]
» Read more
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 carried aloft by four saints. The image of the dove in the Holy Spirit window has been duplicated and copied all over the world […]
» Read more
The feast of Saint Valentine was removed from the Roman calendar during the reforms of 1969. It seems a shame, since this is one of a vanishingly small number of saint’s feasts that have remained in the secular culture. It seems to me that it could be used as a touchstone for the new evangelization. Mind you, he’s still in […]
» Read more
Faith and reason are like the two shoes you wear on your journey. You get a lot farther with both than just one. (J. Michael Straczynski) 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 – you […]
» Read more
Today is the memorial of the blessed martyr Saint Polycarp. Burned alive in Rome for the crime of being a Christian bishop, he was a disciple of Saint John the Apostle. In fact, he was ordained bishop of Smyrna by Saint John. He wrote many letters, though only one has survived the centuries, his Epistle to the Philippians. A brief […]
» Read more
Today is both the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, and the eighth 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”. Francine and I have a funny tradition. When I proposed to her, I distracted her for a moment […]
» Read more