Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Everybody knows a guy who just won’t shut up. Sometimes it’s not even that he has something to say, or that he likes the sound of his own voice. Sometimes these are the folks who are genuinely frightened by silence. Sometimes, they just don’t know how not to talk. If those folks had a patron saint, it would no doubt […]
» Read moreThis past Sunday, our parish celebrated its feast day with Masses (Ordinary Form, English with Latin responses) and a potluck. The feast of the Holy Rosary is actually today, but since it is our patronal solemnity, the Archbishop has given permission to move the celebration to the nearest Sunday. One of my volunteer gigs there is to coordinate the Altar […]
» Read more
Back in high school, a group of us did an extensive report on the events of this day for my freshman history class. We had flip chart maps, reenactments, and gave three separate papers. For on this day in 1571, the naval forces of a Holy League, consisting of several maritime Catholic countries, met the main Ottoman fleet at the […]
» Read moreMy parish of Holy Rosary will celebrate our parish feast day on Sunday October 5 with a special Mass at noon. Holy Rosary is located just north of I-5 overlooking downtown Tacoma, at 424 South 30th Street. Seriously, you can’t miss it. This year we’re celebrating 800 years. No, the parish church might be old, but it’s not quite that […]
» Read moreMy parish of Holy Rosary will hold a Blessing of the Animals on Saturday, October 4 from 10:00 to 11:00 AM in celebration of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Holy Rosary is located just north of I-5 overlooking downtown Tacoma, at 424 South 30th Street. You can’t miss it. Everyone is invited to bring their animals, as Holy […]
» Read moreBoth of my readers will no doubt recall that these days I’m praying the Hours with the Monastic Diurnal. I’ve mentioned before that the rankings of the various feasts in the old Monastic calendar are relatively straightforward. But on both Monday’s Vespers for Michaelmas and today’s for the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, there’s something odd. Follow me, here. […]
» Read moreThis dreary, foggy Monday 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. In England this is one of the “quarter days”, which […]
» Read moreWhat kind of life could the child possibly look forward to? He was born with a cleft palate, cerebral palsy, and spina bifida. In these progressive days, the child very well might have been aborted after the doctor showed the mother her first detailed fetal ultrasound. But the child had the great fortune to be born in 1013, a much […]
» Read moreToday at 10:12AM, a small vial of dried blood in Naples turned to liquid, as it has done several times a year since at least the 1380s. A great crowd had gathered to witness this event. The man holding up the vial is Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples. The announcement is traditionally greeted by a 21-gun salute from […]
» Read moreWhither is thy Beloved gone, O thou most beautiful among women? Whither is thy Beloved turned aside, and we will seek Him with thee? We begin with the first antiphon of Lauds for today’s feast of The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Monastic Diurnal. The Blessed Virgin Mary is sometimes called Our Lady of Sorrows – […]
» Read moreFrancine and I have been noodling about what our second Camino – our first full Camino together – will look like. First off, we’re going to take it slow. Our initial thought is to fly out of Seattle on Easter Sunday 2016 and in to Barcelona. From there, we’ll catch a Ryan Air flight to Lourdes and spend a day […]
» Read moreOn the morning of my first day of high school, the principal swept into my homeroom class. He was an Augustinian friar, and he moved in a precise way, as though every gesture had been planned in advance. I’d never met a friar. I’d never gone to a Catholic school before. I wasn’t even Catholic. My academic career to this […]
» Read moreVery rarely has today’s feast made much of an impression on me. I did write about it once, three years ago, because I was struck by the convergence of a beautiful dawn with the readings of the day. God is truly a poet to confound the mathematicians and a mathematician to confound the poets.
» Read moreOnly a handful of Popes ever get named “Great”. Today is the feast of one of them, Pope Saint Gregory the Great, confessor and doctor of the Church (540 – 604). Gregory had been born into an ancient and wealthy Roman family. Before he was 30 years old, he had been a Roman Senator and then Prefect of Rome. He […]
» Read more
Urged to reflect upon myself, I entered under your guidance the innermost places of my being; but only because you had become my helper was I able to do so. I entered, then, and with the vision of my spirit, such as it was, I saw the incommutable light far above my spiritual ken and transcending my mind: not this […]
» Read moreBorn of Christian parents about the year 331 at Tagaste in Africa, Monica was reared under the strict supervision of an elderly nurse who had likewise reared her father. In the course of time she was given in marriage to a pagan named Patricius. Besides other faults, he possessed a very irascible nature…
» Read moreOn the old calendar, today is the feast of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was moved in the calendar reform to the Saturday following the Second Sunday after Pentecost. For what reason, I’ve no idea. On the new calendar, today is also a Marian feast, that of Our Lady Queen of Heaven. Whatever changes there might […]
» Read more