Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
(from my journal) Roncesvalles Easter Tuesday / 6:52AM “Wake Up, Little Susie” at 6:30, played on guitar and sung by a very enthusiastic minstrel. Oy. Looking back at Roncesvalles Setting off at last! This is the photo that every pilgrim has taken. Zubiri / Albuergue Zaldiko Easter Tuesday / 3:45PM Set off with Linda from Germany. We had breakfast in […]
» Read moreA rough day, full of missing the Camino and my Camino family. I believe I will deal with this by using this one-year anniversary to begin typing my journal – rough as it is – and posting the entries to my Camino blog day by day. Let’s see what happens, shall we? If we’re fortunate, and the technology still works, […]
» Read moreWe are rapidly approaching the one-year anniversary of our Camino. And, God willing, exactly two years from today we will leave on our next one. In the next month or so, I’ll be posting photos, day by day, of last year’s Camino, with my ruminations on each day a year later. This is not exactly for you, dear reader (though […]
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The mercy of God is a scandal – Christ offers His infinite mercy to every worst kind of sinner, excluding no one. This eternal upwelling of mercy overflows, cascading upon the whole of the human race. It extends to murderers. It extends to rapists. It extends to thieves, and liars, and stalkers, and vandals. It extends to tax collectors and […]
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LISTEN, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou may return to Him from whom by the sloth of disobedience thou hast gone away. (Beginning of the Prologue of the Rule of Saint […]
» Read moreWell 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 moreThis past week I was privileged to attend the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts at Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church with my good friend Greg. Can I say? The liturgy was absolutely beautiful and quite affecting – and of course there was much with which I was completely unfamiliar. The choir was beautiful, and the chanting – in English – really […]
» Read moreAs the Altar Server coordinator for my parish, one of my jobs is to train Servers, old and new. This past Saturday, I conducted my first formal training. We had a very good turnout and a very productive training. We ran half an hour over on time for what was already scheduled to be a two-hour training. The first half […]
» Read moreWelcome to all those who found my Camino blog via Craig Sailor’s great article in the Tacoma News Tribune! Being a blog, the articles are in backwards order in terms of time, but the Archives link on the left hand side of the page should help you find the oldest posts so you can read them in order. Enjoy! thom
» Read more“Remember Man that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.” And with those words, our Lent has begun. Holy Mother Church calls us to make these next forty days until Easter a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Lent is a pilgrimage, in a sense, through time if not space, through death to resurrection. A pilgrimage of penitence. […]
» Read moreLent starts Wednesday! Here are the Lenten regulations as sourced from the Saint James Cathedral web site. A fuller description may be downloaded from the Archdiocese of Seattle web site. For this penitential season, the Church draws on the wisdom of the Scriptures and tradition in suggesting a time of intense prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
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Usually I work out my Lenten plan some few weeks before the start of the season, but here it is, the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, and I’m only now thinking about it! In my own defense, I’ve been working on my presentation to our Catechumens on Monday about Ash Wednesday and Lent, so it’s not been far from my mind. […]
» Read moreIt’s been a long time since I last talked about my own life here. Obviously, there was a whole lot of journalling when Francine and I walked the Camino, but since then not so much. When I started this blog, I was discerning whether God was calling me to the Diaconate. Since the Archdiocese of Seattle currently has no plans […]
» Read moreMost 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 moreGreat video from the Latin Mass Society on the ancient Pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima or Shrovetide. Septuagesima from LMS on Vimeo.
» Read moreThis is a reprint of one of my more popular blog posts, which I had intended to re-run each year on this day. Unfortunately, last year about this time, Pope Benedict XVI announced his abdication, which pretty much occupied my blogging focus. I‘m gratified that the Pope Emeritus is said to be doing well. When he was elected, he took […]
» Read moreToday is the 1200th anniversary of the death of Charlemagne. He, more than any other single human being, cemented the idea in western Europe of a truly universal, Catholic culture. Every ruler who followed him looked to him and to his example. Even after every political organ he had created was gone, even after every monarchy established by his grandchildren […]
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