Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Today is the memorial of the great Doctor of the Church, Saint Ambrose of Milan (340-397). As is my custom on this day, I’m posting the second reading from today’s Office of Readings. Although Ambrose is specifically addressing bishops in this letter, his call to evangelization is for all of us, for all time. Saint Ambrose of Milan, a contemporary […]
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Happy Saint Nicholas Day! How Saint Nicholas was transmogrified into Santa Claus, I’ll never know. “Jolly Old Saint Nick” was by all accounts a thin man, most famous for giving gifts to prostitutes and punching heretics. That whole “eight tiny reindeer” thing seems like a bit of a come down. Wait, prostitutes? Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (d. 06 December […]
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The Church honours Saint Benedict with two great feasts. One is not much celebrated these days, as it typically occurs during Lent, and it has been removed from the Universal Calendar. To these, some Benedictine monasteries add a third feast, which is celebrated today. Icon of Saint Benedict at Mount Athos The feast of the Transitus of Saint Benedict is […]
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The season of Advent began with last night’s vespers, and today is the First Sunday of Advent. This is the first day of the new liturgical year, so happy Advent and happy new year! Behold, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, and His glory fills all the earth. (Magnificat Antiphon for I Vespers on the First Sunday of […]
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Today is the memorial of Saint Edmund Campion. If the paintings of him are to be believed, he is a man to whom I bear more than a passing resemblance. We commemorated the five hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation a few years ago. Many continue to see this as a good thing. I don’t. Saint Edmund Campion, SJ Here […]
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Andrew, son of Jonah, fisherman of Bethsaida in Galilee. Follower of John the Baptist. The first apostle called by Christ, who told him and his brother, Simon, to “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men”. After the Resurrection, Andrew preached along the coasts of the Black Sea, both north and south, founding churches that included one […]
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This weekend we celebrate the great feast of Christ the King. Traditionally here at Pistachio House, we have had our “Franksgiving” feast on this day. This year, due to the vagaries of the calendar, we actually had our feast last week. No matter. And it is right that we celebrate God’s bounty and God’s blessings in our lives. But today, […]
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Fifty-six years before the English Puritan refugees at Plymouth celebrated their “first Thanksgiving”, Spanish explorers and their Timucua allies celebrated one in Saint Augustine, in what is now Florida. They had bean soup. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was a Spanish admiral from Asturias. He was under orders to root out some French colonists in the area. […]
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Saint Cecilia is one of the most famous and most venerated of Roman martyrs. Legend has it that she was martyred during the reign of Emperor Alexander Severus, about AD 230. Her name appears in the First Eucharistic Prayer (the Roman Canon) among Rome’s other beloved martyrs, and when Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire in the fourth century, […]
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Appropriate to today – the Feast of All Souls of the Benedictine Order – we once again have the Dies Iræ, the traditional sequence for Requiem Masses and the Masses of All Souls. Today we pray for the souls of all Benedictine monks, nuns, sisters, and oblates in purgatory. Servant of God Thomas of Celano Most probably written by […]
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Once again we come to a feast of All Saints. “But wait!” I hear you cry, “wasn’t that back on the first of November?” Right you are! But today on the Benedictine calendar is the feast of All Saints of the Benedictine Order. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside […]
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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 church of Saint John Lateran. Which Saint John? Good question. Two of them, actually, for the full name of this church […]
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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 […]
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Happy Feast of All Saints! This is the day where 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 […]
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Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising,fair as the moon, bright as the sun,terrible as an army set in array? (Benedictus antiphon, Monastic Office of Lauds for the Assumption) Today’s great Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which in the East is known as the Dormition of the Theotokos, is one that holds a […]
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“I am a Polish Catholic priest. I would like to take the place of this man, since he has a wife and children.” (Saint Maximilian Kolbe, OFM Con., taking the place of fellow prisoner Franciszek Gajowniczek at Auschwitz.) On today’s Vigil of the Assumption, we celebrate also the memory of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan Friar and priest who spent […]
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I often think about Saint Lawrence, the Deacon martyr whose feast is today. Many is the time I’ve sought his intercession. There are so many stories about him that it’s hard to sum him up briefly, although Pope Saint Leo the Great did his best: “The Lord has desired to exalt his glorious name in the world so much that […]
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