You would be forgiven for thinking that the Pope’s main church is St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. It’s certainly the largest. But no. The […]
Supporting the Eucharistic Revival
General Instruction of the Roman Missal
Processions in the Rubrics of Lent
It’s a little hard to believe, but Ash Wednesday is less than a week away. How can Lent be so close already? The modern Roman […]
Exhortations
Saint Benedict and the Work of God
Today is the feast of Saint Benedict of Nursia, who can safely be said to be the father of western monasticism. His monastic Holy Rule, […]
Resources and Reviews
resources
Pope Saint John XXIII and Veterum Sapientia
Were tomorrow not Sunday, it would be the Memorial of Pope Saint John XXIII. I thought I’d post the saintly Pope’s 1962 Apostolic Constitution, Veterum […]
Review
A Digression on the Star Wars
Sometime in early June 1977, in a small theater in Hegewisch Illinois, I saw Star Wars for the first time. My grandfather took my sister […]
From Living and Chosen Stones
You would be forgiven for thinking that the Pope’s main church is St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. It’s certainly the largest. But no. The Pope’s own church, his episcopal seat as Bishop of Rome, is the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. Which Saint John? Good question. Two of them, actually, for the full name of this church is the […]
» Read moreGunpowder, Treason, and Plot
On this day in 1605, a cabal of Catholic plotters, hoping to turn back the tides of reformation and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne of Great Britain, attempted to assassinate the very Protestant King James. Their plan—if you can dignify it by calling it a plan—was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of […]
» Read moreSinging for the Dead: All Souls’ Day
So. Let’s talk Purgatory. We have to, to make any sense at all out of today’s feast. Today is officially “The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed”, but like most folks, I’ll stick with the simple version – All Souls’ Day. Given the day’s importance in the life of the Church, there’s a lot of history and liturgy – and […]
» Read moreAll Saints on a Sunday
Happy Feast of All Saints! This is the day when we celebrate all the saints, known and unknown: the Church Triumphant. We ask them to pray for us. I, for one, could use all the help I can get! This day has been a feast since the sixth or seventh century, thanks to the abbots of Cluny, and it was […]
» Read moreReformation Day
Protestants all over the world celebrate “Reformation Day” on October 31. I don’t. In 2017, on the five-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther’s revolt, I wrote a lengthy essay on exactly why not. I repost it every year on this day. Five Hundred Years Today is the five hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It is fitting that […]
» Read moreOn the Vigil of All Saints
Let us prepare our souls for the graces heaven is about to shower upon the earth in return for its homage. To-morrow the Church will be so overflowing with joy, that she will seem to be already in possession of eternal happiness; but to-day she appears in the garb of penance, confessing that she is still an exile. Let us […]
» Read moreSaint Crispin’s day
Today is the anniversary of King Henry V’s famous victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. As Shakespeare reminds us in his Henry V, this battle took place on the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian. May you have the joy of the feast! Of course, today being Sunday, even in places where this feast is […]
» Read moreThe Miracle of the Sun
More than a century ago on this very day in the town of Fátima, Portugal, a miracle occurred. This remarkable event occurred at the height of the Great War, and an estimated 70,000 people witnessed it. It is known as the “Miracle of the Sun”. Avelino de Almeida, writing for Portugal’s popular pro-government and anti-clerical newspaper O Século, said: Before […]
» Read moreOur Lady of the Pillar
On October 12, AD 40, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the Apostle Saint James near the town of Caesaraugusta in the Roman Province of Hispania, in what is now Zaragoza, Spain. He was discouraged. His mission in Hispania was largely a failure, with few converts and only a handful of ordained men to preach the Gospel here, at the […]
» Read morePope Saint John XXIII and Veterum Sapientia
Were tomorrow not Sunday, it would be the Memorial of Pope Saint John XXIII. I thought I’d post the saintly Pope’s 1962 Apostolic Constitution, Veterum Sapientia. This landmark constitution is a love letter to the Latin Language. While never abrogated, it was to my knowledge never enforced. On the Vatican website, it is only available in Latin and Spanish. Fortunately […]
» Read moreNever Stop Preaching: Saints Denis and John Henry Newman
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 moreOur Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary
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 Battle of Lepanto. In later years, the anniversary of this day was celebrated as the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, and later, as the Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. Back in […]
» Read moreThe Majesty of Sainte-Foy
Today is the feast day of Sainte-Foy, a saint almost entirely unknown in the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, she is one of my favourite saints, and I wear a medal with her image. She has become very dear to me. Sainte-Foy was born around AD 291 in the Gallo-Roman city of Aginnum, modern-day Agen in France. She suffered martyrdom about the year 303 at the […]
» Read moreSaint Francis of Assisi: 800 Years
Were it not Sunday, today we would be celebrating the Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi. In fact, today is the 800th anniversary of his death, and the Franciscan Friars and Sisters around the world are celebrating this great jubilee. Just about everybody knows Saint Francis. He’s the plaster birdbath guy, right? The saint who hung around with fuzzy pastel […]
» Read moreFeast of the Holy Guardian Angels
Do you pray to your Guardian Angel? Do you ask them for advice or help? Why not? The Church teaches that we all receive a guardian angel at birth, an angel assigned to guide and protect us, to watch over us. As it says in scripture: There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy […]
» Read moreSaint Jerome: Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of Christ
Saint Jerome was both a brilliant translator and expounder of the scriptures and a grumpy old man. Born in the Roman province of Dalmatia in modern Slovenia, he studied in Rome starting in about the year 360. During a journey to Syria in 373, he fell ill and had a vision that caused him to devote the rest of his […]
» Read moreFeast of the Archangels – Happy Michaelmas!
Today 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. So happy Michaelmas! In England this is one of the “quarter days”, which […]
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