Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
During Lent, I am reading the Desert Fathers. On occasion I will post sayings that strike me during my Lectio. A brother who followed the hesychastic life in the monastery of the cave of Abba Sabba came to Abba Elias and said to him, “Abba, give me the way of life.” The Old man said to the brother, “In the […]
» Read morePalladius said: One day when I was suffering from boredom I went to Abba Macarius and said, “What shall I do? My thoughts afflict me, saying, you are not making any progress, go away from here.” He said to me, “Tell them, for Christ’s sake, I am guarding the walls.”
» Read moreLeading up to the great celebration of the mysteries of the death and resurrection of Christ during Holy Week, the Church calls us to forty days of penitence. The Lenten Season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving has been observed by Christians since Apostolic times. Indeed, Christ himself retreated to the desert for forty days, where he was tempted by the […]
» Read moreRecently I found an app that allows me to run WordPerfect (may it rest in peace) on my MacBook. This opened up a whole world of previously unreachable writings that I had doggedly saved, even though I had no way of opening up the files and actually reading the contents. Until now. The following is an essay I wrote back […]
» Read moreI have a dirty little secret. Sometimes… sometimes, I pray in Latin. It’s not that I think God likes Latin better than English, and I am certainly not fluent in Latin. In fact it’s safe to say that my knowledge of the language is vanishingly small. This brings up two points: why on earth would somebody pray in a language […]
» Read moreSaint Paul calls us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17, cf. Ephesians 6:18). How are we to understand this? I think there are two ways. One is the way explored by an unnamed Russian pilgrim in the spiritual classic The Way of a Pilgrim. The book dates from the mid-19th century, and in it the author visits various monasteries […]
» Read moreToday 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 don’t need to think any more”, I always pointed them to Thomas Aquinas. Here’s a guy who was observed to simultaneously dictate three different books to […]
» Read moreToday is the feast of Saint Agnes, a young Roman lady of 13 or 14 who suffered martyrdom in the persecutions of Diocletian. Her name is in the Roman Canon of the Mass (Eucharistic Prayer I), though I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve actually heard it prayed. On this day, I am […]
» Read moreToday is the Feast of Saint Thomas Becket. Even before my conversion, I always admired Saint Thomas. It might have something to do with his name—as a child the only other famous Thomases I knew were Jefferson and Edison, and I didn’t much care for Edison. I’d like to think it had more to do with talking Truth to power. […]
» Read moreNow there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news […]
» Read morePlease pray for Fr. Carmine Sacco, S.J., who collapsed while celebrating the Christmas Midnight Mass at St. Rita parish in Tacoma tonight. He was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital.
» Read moreWe shall end this Advent chant sequence with the hymn assembled from the O Antiphons. I’ve also posted one of my favourite Christmas songs, which is particularly appropriate in the deeps of Christmas Vigil. May all who read these words have a truly blessed Christmas.
» Read moreWe come to the last of the O Antiphons, for tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the Vigil of the Nativity. I mentioned yesterday that the O Antiphons were arranged backwards into the song Veni, Veni Emmanuel. This was by design, for the Antiphons themselves are a backwards acrostic. The first letters of the Messianic titles — Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, […]
» Read moreAdvent is my favourite of the liturgical seasons, I think. These holy days feel like holy days, probably the only season that affects me like that. I suspect it’s childhood memories that make it so. With Christmas literally days away, we hear the penultimate O Antiphon this evening. I mentioned a couple of days ago that the antiphons might sound […]
» Read moreJust came back from a neighbour’s solstice party, a strange but wonderful concatenation of Christians and pagans. I am more impressed than ever with the various types in the pagan faiths that are echoes or pre-echoes of the coming of Christ, the Light of the World. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Upon those who […]
» Read moreChristmas is closer and closer each day, and we continue pleading with the Lord to make haste. Lead us from our prison of sin and darkness and death! It’s dark outside now as I’m posting this at scarcely six o’clock. The winter solstice, the longest night of the year, is nigh. This year, it’s even a more tangible symbol of […]
» Read moreBy now some of you might be thinking that the O Antiphon words might be sounding kind of familiar, even though you’re not really up on your Gregorian Chant. In fact, these antiphons are some of the earliest attested antiphons in the Divine Office, being mentioned in passing in the works of Saint Boethius in the early sixth century. The […]
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