Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
On this day in 1431, Saint Joan of Arc was burned at the stake by the English at the age of 19. I’ve written about Saint Joan before, here and here, and I’m not going to go over old ground today. I‘m simply going to say that in this, the 600th year since her birth, we do well to remember […]
» Read more…we’re back in Ordinary Time. Which of course, is not so ordinary at all. Unless of course, you’re celebrating the Octave of Pentecost.
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When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they […]
» Read moreToday is the feast of this blog’s patron, Saint Bede the Venerable. I took the name Bede when I made my final oblation as a Benedictine. Bede occupies an important niche in Church history by bridging the gap between patristic and early medieval times, the era when the Germanic nations had just been Christianized. Through him Christian tradition and Roman […]
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Saint Rita, whose feast is today, is sometimes known as the patron saint of lost and impossible causes. Married at a young age against her will to a terrible, abusive husband, by her prayers she gradually reformed him into a proper Christian husband. After his murder, she entered the convent. This wounded saint received the marks of Christ’s thorny wounds […]
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This past week, I had occasion to reflect on the liturgy at the parish we’ve been attending the past few months. I found myself startled to realize that in that entire time, I had not observed a single liturgical abuse. Not one. Not one deliberately changed word. No shenanigans. At all. There is nothing perfect this side of heaven. However, […]
» Read moreThe welling of blood from Christ’s wounds – from His million tiny shreds of scourged flesh, from the thousand thorn marks on His head, to the bruised tear on His shoulder where He carried His cross, to the five Great Wounds of nail and spear – all that blood, welling up, forming an enormous single drop of Divine blood at […]
» Read moreWhen they had gathered together they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be […]
» Read moreThis year, I shall be praying the Novena to the Holy Spirit. This first and greatest of Novenas is based on the words of scripture, when the disciples, including the Twelve Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary, prayed in the Upper Room for nine days from the Ascension until the Holy Spirit descended on Pentecost (Acts 1:12 – 2:5). Won’t […]
» Read moreTomorrow is forty days since Easter, the Solemnity of the Ascension, when Christ ascended into heaven in what has to be one of the great comic scenes in the Bible: [A]s they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly […]
» Read moreAfter the suicide of Judas Iscariot, the remaining Apostles gathered to choose another to replace him. They had some criteria: Therefore, it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us, […]
» Read moreAs both of my long-time readers know, I am a fan of Fr. Robert Barron. His Catholicism Project is to religion what Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was to science. Therefore, I offer my heart-felt congratulations to Father Barron, who yesterday was appointed Rector of Mundelein Seminary in Chicago. From the press release: The Archbishop of Chicago, Francis Cardinal George, announced today Father […]
» Read moreHildegard 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 of […]
» Read moreGod willing, and assuming I have calculated correctly, exactly one year from today I will be arriving in Santiago de Compostella in Spain at the end of a long pilgrimage. The two obvious questions are: What? and Why? The “what” part is easy. I will follow the medieval pilgrimage trail known as the Camino de Santiago, starting from the mountain […]
» Read moreOn this day in the Year of Our Lord 373 died a great champion and defender of Catholic Orthodoxy, a saint, and a doctor of the Church. Saint Athanasius was Patriarch of Alexandria for 45 years during the time of the Arian heresy, which he opposed with every fibre of his being. The Arians held that Christ was a creature […]
» Read moreWhen Pope Saint Pius V issued the Papal Bull “Quo Primum” in 1570, Christendom was in chaos. The happy diversity of rites that had persisted through the middle ages had come home to roost in the disjointed response to the Lutheran reforms that, driven by ego and ignorance on both sides, had spun out of control into heresy and reformation. […]
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“Because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is and what God expects him to do.” (Fiddler on the Roof) Like the Hebrews stretching back to the age of Moses, the Church is upheld by two great pillars: Scripture and Tradition. After the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), large chunks of the Church embraced a whole lot of […]
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