Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
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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Happy Eleventh Day of Christmas! Today we honour a more modern saint than those of recent days. Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first native-born American citizen to be canonized. Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton (by Amabilia Filicchi, 1888) She was born in 1774 and grew up in a home in upperclass New York society. Her father was frequently absent in London […]
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Happy Ninth Day of Christmas! Today is the Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church. Saints Basil and Gregory Nazianzen were contemporaries from Cappadocia and great theologians of the early Church. They were lifelong friends and cohorts in fighting against the Arian heresy. Their names are sung together in the Litany of […]
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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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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 the midst of our Christmas joy. Today might be a good time to talk about the Roman Martyrology. This is one […]
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Happy fifth day of Christmas! Today, the Church usually celebrates the memorial of Saint Thomas Becket. Because it’s the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas, it is instead the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. In the Holy Family, God gives us a living icon of family life: child, mother, father. Russian Icon of the Holy Family […]
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In our life of faith, we are given a name at Baptism, and we choose a new name at Confirmation. It was a little different for me, as I was baptized and confirmed on the same day as an adult. My mother gave me the name Thomas at my birth, and for my confirmation, I took the name of John […]
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The rest of the world thinks Christmas is over, with the possible exception of those who celebrate Boxing Day today or those fond of partridges in pear trees. Oh, how wrong they are! For like Easter, Christmas isn’t just one day, but a whole season! The Twelve Days of Christmas continue right up through the Epiphany (January 6, more or […]
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Today is Lucy’s Day! No, not that one. Saint Lucy was a Sicilian martyr. She was a wealthy young lady of Greek extraction brought up by Christian parents. She was killed during the horrific persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian in about 304. The facts surrounding her martyrdom have accreted so many legends that it’s difficult to be sure exactly what […]
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Time again for some history! If you think that the Spanish conquistadors are the ones who imposed Catholicism on the hapless Aztecs, well you’re wrong. Lord knows they tried. And tried. And failed. In the first decade of Spanish rule (1521 – 1531), only a handful of Native Americans embraced Christianity. And then… well, a miracle. Here’s the story as […]
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Happy Saint Nicholas Day! How Saint Nicholas was transmogrified into Santa Claus, I’ll never know. “Jolly Old Saint Nick” was by all accounts a thin man, most famous for giving gifts to prostitutes and punching heretics. That whole “eight tiny reindeer” thing seems like a bit of a come down. Wait, prostitutes? Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (d. 06 December […]
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The Church honours Saint Benedict with two great feasts. One is not much celebrated these days, as it typically occurs during Lent, and it has been removed from the Universal Calendar. The Benedictines, of course, continue to celebrate both. To these, some Benedictine monasteries add a third feast, which is celebrated today. Icon of Saint Benedict at Mount Athos The […]
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Andrew, son of Jonah, fisherman of Bethsaida in Galilee. Follower of John the Baptist. The first apostle called by Christ, who told him and his brother, Simon, to “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men”. After the Resurrection, Andrew preached along the coasts of the Black Sea, both north and south, founding churches that included one […]
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Saint Cecilia is one of the most famous and most venerated of Roman martyrs. Legend has it that she was martyred during the reign of Emperor Alexander Severus, about AD 230. Her name appears in the First Eucharistic Prayer (the Roman Canon) among Rome’s other beloved martyrs, and when Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire in the fourth century, […]
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Surrexit Odo, plenus Spiritu Sancto, et monastici Ordinis decus per orbem renovatum est. (Odo arose, filled with the Holy Spirit, and restored the glory of the monastic Order throughout the world.) —Antiphon 2, Lauds of Saint Odo Today is the memorial of Saint Odo of Cluny on some of the calendars of the Benedictine Order. Others – most especially the […]
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Several years ago, The Catholic Herald published an article on one of today’s lesser known saints that absolutely delights me: Blessed Lucy of Narnia. Of all the great characters from children’s literature, who better to have a namesake to intercede for us in heaven? (At least, in the absence of a St Bofa of Sofa.) After all, it was she, […]
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Once again we come to a feast of All Saints. “But wait!” I hear you cry, “wasn’t that back on the first of November?” Right you are! But today on the Benedictine calendar is the feast of All Saints of the Benedictine Order. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside […]
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