Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Yesterday, following Vespers, I gave Father Wagner’s family the compostela from last year’s Camino. It seemed fitting, since I had walked for him. Indeed, the Pilgrim Office staff had written on it “Vicarie pro Rev. Michael Wagner”, indicating that I had walked as his substitute. Today I am reminded of something I wrote in my journal on this day back […]
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May the second looms large in my life. On this day in 2013, Francine and I walked into Santiago de Compostela for the first time, at the end of our first Camino. At this point, Francine had been walking for almost two weeks, and me for more than a month. I can’t describe the joy of that day. Arrival in […]
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Today, the Second Sunday in the Octave of Easter, is also known as Divine Mercy Sunday. Pope John Paul II proclaimed the Sunday after Easter as the Sunday of the Divine Mercy (Dominica II Paschæ seu de divina misericordia) in accord with the visions of the Divine Mercy received by Saint Faustina. But what is the Divine Mercy? In short, […]
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There are two kinds of time. There’s the kind you can measure. That’s the kind we live through sequentially, moment to moment. The Greek word for this is “kronos”, where we get words like “chronometer” and “chronicle”. Then, there’s the other kind. The Greeks call this “kairos”. This is the time when God acts, when eternity breaks into linear time. […]
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Gene Wolfe has died. Mr. Wolfe was an enormous influence on me as a writer and as a human being. Gene Wolfe (1931-2019) He was a master of implication and manipulating the reader’s inferences. You could read the first page of any Wolfe book and know things about the world in which the book was set that he never directly […]
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The mercy of God is a scandal – Christ offers His infinite mercy to every worst kind of sinner, excluding no one. This eternal upwelling of mercy overflows, cascading upon the whole of the human race. It extends to murderers. It extends to rapists. It extends to thieves, and liars, and stalkers, and vandals. It extends to tax collectors and […]
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Happy Feast of Saint Benedict! Although it no longer appears on the Universal (Roman) calendar, today is one of two feasts of Saint Benedict of Norcia celebrated by Benedictines throughout the world. This feast is sometimes called the Transitus of Saint Benedict, for it is the day in the year 547 when this great saint died. Saint Benedict is generally […]
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On a cold winter morning in the year of our Lord 1300, a terrible snowstorm descended upon the rural hill country in northwest Spain. A peasant named Juan Santín made his way in the midst of the driving snow to the church of Santa María in the village of O Cebreiro for Mass. The priest, who had long ago lost his […]
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Feeling rather melancholy this evening, and one of the psalms from Vespers particularly struck home. Super flumina Babylonis ibi sedimus et flevimus : * cum recordaremur Sion : In salicibus in medio ejus * suspendimus organa nostra. Quia illic interrogaverunt nos, qui captivos duxerunt nos, * verba cantionum : Et qui abduxerunt nos : * Hymnum cantate nobis de canticis […]
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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 […]
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I can’t speak for anybody else, but I need all the help I can get. As a writer, I often find that I love having written much more than actually writing. I distract myself easily. It doesn’t help, I suppose, that I tend to write in bursts, like I’m emptying my brain. Then I rather need to recharge the brain […]
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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 […]
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Superman fights for “truth, justice, and the American way!” We should fight for the three transcendentals: truth, beauty, and goodness. The transcendentals were known to the Ancient Greeks, but Catholic theologians quickly baptized them into their study of philosophy and theology. Transcendentals are the timeless and universal attributes of being. They are the properties of all beings, as well as […]
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Happy Epiphany! In a sense, the Feast of the Epiphany is the culmination (if not quite the end) of the Christmas Season. It was once a much more celebrated feast than it is now. In fact, it once had its own Octave. Like many others, I’d love to see that restored. In the popular imagination, the Feast of the Epiphany […]
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On this day in 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The Professor is 127 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, […]
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Today is the feast of the great Doctor of the Church, Saint Ambrose of Milan (340-397). Rather than prattle on about this great saint, 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. You have entered upon the […]
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Father Dwight Longenecker has a great article up today about Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey. I’ve written several times about this growing and vital abbey, and Father Longenecker nails it: Now under the leadership of Abbot Philip Anderson that group of about a half dozen men have established a new monastery. Already they have fifty monks and the average […]
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