Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
This is not my normal St. Patrick’s Day post. If you’d like to read something about the Saint, check out last year’s post. Today, I want to talk about this day last year. Francine journaled obsessively. Every year, sometimes more than once, she would try out an entirely new journaling system. Like me, she never met a notebook she didn’t […]
» Read more
During Lent, I am often reminded of one of my favourite stories from the Desert Fathers. This year, perhaps, it hits a little differently. In the relative aloneness and solitude I live these days, I am much closer to the desert than in years previous. Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as […]
» Read more
At our parish of Saint Patrick in Tacoma, we are celebrating Solemn Vespers on the evening of each Sunday of Lent at 6:00 PM. Please, join us in the coming weeks if you are local and able. Chanted Vespers is a beautiful and traditional way of worship in our faith. This is our third year singing Vespers in Lent, and two […]
» Read more
This has been a rough week. One of the ways I volunteer at my parish is as an adult catechist. I’m part of our OCIA team; we teach the faith to those adults seeking baptism or full communion with the Catholic Church. We have a great team – we have some folks who are real theological heavyweights, some folks who […]
» Read more
Today is the memorial of the blessed martyr Saint Polycarp. Burned alive and then beheaded in the city of Rome for the crime of being a Christian bishop, he was a disciple of Saint John the Apostle. In fact, he was ordained bishop of Smyrna by Saint John. He wrote many letters, though only one has survived the centuries, his […]
» Read more
Remember that you are dust, and to 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. Let […]
» Read more
Already tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. Where has the time gone? It seems like Christmas just ended. In previous years, my home Archdiocese of Seattle published “Lenten Regulations” to remind us what is expected of every Christian during Lent. In recent years, however, they have taken a different approach. Instead, we have a web page called […]
» Read more
The memorial of Saint Valentine was removed from the Roman calendar during the calendar reform of 1970. It seems a shame, since this is one of a vanishingly small number of saint’s feasts that have remained in the secular culture. It seems to me that it could be used as a touchstone for the new evangelization. Mind you, he’s still […]
» Read more
For several years, before we bought Pistachio House, Francine and I shared an apartment with the various children and cats. The address was 13o2 Division Avenue, and we were in apartment 13. Francine was convinced that 13 was a lucky number (“it’s lucky in Italy!”), so on most Fridays the 13th we would have a little party. These were small […]
» Read more
Saint Benedict was the founder of Western monasticism; to this day, most monks and nuns worldwide follow some variation of his “Little Rule for Beginners“. Benedict had a twin sister, Scholastica, whose feast day is today. Under her brother’s guidance, she founded the first female monastery in the West. I often think that their parents had a sense of humour, […]
» Read more
Francine and I bought Pistachio House in the Autumn of 2006. We moved in with a tribe of kids and cats. Sometime before that first Christmas, we rescued two kittens who had been born under the porch next door in the Autumn and abandoned by their mother. These were Sophie and Linus, who by our reckoning were the first of […]
» Read more
Today was once one of the most solemn feasts of the year. It’s gone by several names over the millennia: the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Candlemas. Coming forty days after Christmas, it was once the end of the Christmas season. Even today, there are relics of this […]
» Read more
Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one. (J. Michael Straczynski, “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars“) Today 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 […]
» Read more
Eighteen years ago today, Francine and I were married at Saint Patrick Church in Tacoma. The celebrant was our good friend (and my former coworker and chess opponent) Rev. Bryan Dolejsi. Afterwards, we had a reception at the Holy Rosary school auditorium. Both the wedding and reception had a roaring 20s theme. Francine made her wedding dress and some of […]
» Read more
Happy Saint Agnes Day! Saint Agnes was a young Roman lady of 12 or 13 years old who suffered martyrdom in the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian in about AD 304. She was one of the youngest of the early martyrs and one of the most moving and articulate. Agnes hastened to the place of torture as a bride to […]
» Read more
Today in the United States, we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so I thought I’d tackle the question “are there non-Catholic saints?” Seems like a simple question. First off, what’s a saint exactly? We turn to our trusty Catechism once more and find the following: 823 “The Church . . . is held, as a matter of faith, to […]
» Read more
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 […]
» Read more