Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Happy twelfth day of Christmas! This evening is called Twelfth Night, traditionally the vigil of the Epiphany. In my Monastic Diurnal, Epiphany begins with tonight’s Vespers. This was traditionally a time of feasting and festivity (all of which seem to include various varieties of enormous pastries) marking the end of Christmastide and the beginning of Epiphanytide. This year, that celebration […]
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On this day in 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The Professor is 131 today! All around the world, at 9pm local time, the Tolkien Society and the Professor’s many other devotees will celebrate his birthday with a toast to “the Professor”. I plan to join in, and I encourage you to do the same. The Professor’s […]
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Once again, it’s time for our annual look back at the year that was. Who doesn’t like top ten lists? These are the top ten post hits on the blog for this past year. This is now the sixth annual list, so I guess it now falls under the rubric of venerable custom. Only one of the posts receiving the […]
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a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien Grim was the world and grey last night:The moon and stars were fled,The hall was dark without song or light,The fires were fallen dead.The wind in the trees was like to the sea,And over the mountains’ teethIt whistled bitter-cold and free,As a sword leapt from its sheath. The lord of snows upreared his head;His mantle […]
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Today is Lucy’s Day! No, not that one. Saint Lucy was a Sicilian martyr. She was a wealthy young lady of Greek extraction brought up by Christian parents. She was killed during the horrific persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian in about 304. The facts surrounding her martyrdom have accreted so many legends that it’s difficult to be sure exactly what […]
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Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (d. 06 December 343) 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, […]
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Today is the great feast of Christ the King. Later this afternoon, we will have our “Franksgiving” feast, as we normally have on this day. For the first time since the Plague descended, Pistachio House shall once again be transformed into a great feasting hall of the ancient of days. And it is right that we celebrate God’s bounty and […]
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Several years ago, The Catholic Herald published an article on one of today’s lesser known saints that absolutely delights me: Blessed Lucy of Narnia. Of all the great characters from children’s literature, who better to have a namesake to intercede for us in heaven? (At least, in the absence of a St Bofa of Sofa.) After all, it was she, […]
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Today is the 607th anniversary of King Henry V’s famous victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt. 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! The two saints were beheaded during the Diocletian persecution in AD 285, give […]
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by G.K. Chesterton White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken […]
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In 2016, Francine and I visited the tomb of Saint Isidore of Seville. Although he is entombed in Spain, it is strangely not in the city of Seville, where he was bishop from AD 601 to 636. No, due to the vagaries of history, the majority of his bones are now in in a silver casket at the high altar […]
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Well that got your attention, didn’t it? It’s not quite true of course; Patrick may have been born on the isle of Britain, but in a time before the Angles had arrived and started making it Angland. No, his family were Roman Catholic churchmen from the Roman Imperial province of Britannia. Today, nobody is going to go around speaking in […]
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Today is both the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, and the fourteenth anniversary of the day I wed my beautiful bride. It is, as I have said before, a “moment when everything changed, celebrated on a day when everything changed”. It’s important to mark those changes in our lives. Francine and I have a funny tradition. When I […]
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Happy twelfth day of Christmas! This year I’ve been terrible about posting for the twelve days of Christmas, but I’ve made a handy list at the end of this article which should catch you up. I hope at least you’re enjoying your twelve drummers drumming! This evening is called Twelfth Night, traditionally the vigil of the Epiphany. In my Monastic […]
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On this day in 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The Professor is 130 today! All around the world, at 9pm local time, the Tolkien Society and the Professor’s many other devotees will celebrate his birthday with a toast to “the Professor”. I will join in, and I encourage you to do the same. The Professor’s writing, […]
» Read more
Once again, it’s time for our annual look back at the year that was. And what a year! The plague and lockdowns continued, but instead of looking at the crazy out there, we’re concentrating on the crazy in here – in the form of a top ten. This is now the fifth annual, so I guess it now falls under […]
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a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien Grim was the world and grey last night:The moon and stars were fled,The hall was dark without song or light,The fires were fallen dead.The wind in the trees was like to the sea,And over the mountains’ teethIt whistled bitter-cold and free,As a sword leapt from its sheath. The lord of snows upreared his head;His mantle […]
» Read more