Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
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 […]
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When Pope Saint Pius V promulgated the revised Missale Romanum in the Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum in 1570, he famously wrote that it applied “henceforth, now, and forever, throughout all the provinces of the Christian world”. Yet, just a year later the Pope himself issued the first changes to the Missal, inserting the feast of Our Lady of Victory, to celebrate […]
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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 even once the end of the Christmas season. Even today there are relics of […]
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Today is Septuagesima Sunday, the beginning of a liturgical season known as Septuagesima or Fore-Lent or Shrovetide. It consists of the three weeks immediately before the start of Lent, and indeed the name Septuagesima means seventy, in reference to Quadragesima – forty – which is the proper Latin name for Lent. This liturgical season, meant to prepare us for the […]
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The Church used to celebrate many Octaves. Many great solemnities, and even some older feasts of lesser liturgical stature, had an Octave. Some holy days are so holy that a single day can’t contain them. Take Easter, for instance. The ancient tradition of the Church is to add an entire week to the Sunday that is Easter, making it actually […]
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by G.K. Chesterton Step softly, under snow or rain,To find the place where men can pray;The way is all so very plainThat we may lose the way. Oh we have learnt to peer and poreOn tortured puzzles from our youth,We know all the labyrinthine lore,We are the three wise men of yore,And we know all things but truth. We have […]
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Happy Epiphany, probably! In much of the world, and for much of time, today is celebrated as the great Solemnity of the Epiphany, even if many in the United States and Canada celebrated it this past Sunday. In a sense, the Feast of the Epiphany is the culmination (if not quite the end) of the Christmas Season. It was once […]
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Happy Tenth Day of Christmas! Today is… complicated. Depending on what calendar you happen to be using, today might very well be the great Solemnity of the Epiphany. Or not. Traditionally, though, the Epiphany is celebrated on January 6 – the the day after the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Since the calendar reforms of 1970, any diocese may choose to […]
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All my own perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded upon Our Lady. (J.R.R. Tolkien) Wishing all of you a very happy new year of 2021! This day, being the Eighth Day of Christmas, the Octave Day of the Nativity, has always been a holy day in the Christian Calendar. However, the name and focus of this […]
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As 2020 comes finally to its end, we welcome with hope (and no small amount of trepidation) its sequel, 2021. It’s worth remembering, though, that we are also celebrating some other years as well: holy years. The Year of Saint Joseph Pope Francis has declared a “Year of Saint Joseph” from December 8, 2020 through December 8, 2021. This year […]
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Happy fourth day of Christmas! Today we pause our revels for a moment to remember and celebrate the Holy Innocents. When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained […]
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Happy third day of Christmas! Today we celebrate the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas, the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. In the Holy Family, God gives us a living icon of family life: child, mother, father. Russian Icon of the Holy Family And more than that, this being an icon and not just a […]
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“The Birth of Christ” by Sandro Botticelli O great mystery,and wonderful sacrament,that animals should see the new-born Lord,lying in a manger!Blessed is the Virgin whose wombwas worthy to bearChrist the Lord.Alleluia! Omagnum mysterium,et admirabile sacramentum,ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,jacentem in praesepio!Beata Virgo, cujus viscerameruerunt portareDominum Christum.Alleluia.
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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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As I do every year, I shall end this Advent chant sequence with the hymn assembled from the O Antiphons. I’ve also posted one of my favourite carols, which is particularly appropriate in the deeps of Christmas Vigil. And now for a more traditional version, with the original words in Latin. May all who read these words have a truly […]
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We come to the last of the O Antiphons, for tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the great Vigil of the Nativity. I mentioned yesterday that the O Antiphons were arranged backward into the song Veni, Veni Emmanuel. This was by design, for the Antiphons themselves are a backward acrostic. The first letters of the Messianic titles — Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, […]
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With Christmas just days away now, we hear the penultimate O Antiphon this evening. I mentioned a couple of days ago that the antiphons might sound vaguely familiar to you. In the 12th Century, an unknown composer compiled versions of the O Antiphons into a single Advent hymn, called Veni, Veni Emmanuel. You know the English version as O Come, […]
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