Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
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 […]
» Read moreThroughout most of the world, today is the great Feast of the Epiphany. My American readers, however, will recall celebrating the feast this past Sunday. For reasons I can’t quite fathom, in the dioceses of the United States this feast has been moved to the Sunday between January 2 and January 8. Needless to say, this upsets the whole “Twelve […]
» Read moreOn this day in 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The Professor is 123 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 moreWe come to the last of the O Antiphons, for tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the Vigil of the Nativity. I mentioned yesterday that the O Antiphons were arranged backwards into the song Veni, Veni Emmanuel. This was by design, for the Antiphons themselves are a backwards acrostic. The first letters of the Messianic titles — Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, […]
» Read moreNormally, we ask the servers, lectors, and extraordinary ministers to arrive thirty minutes before Mass. I was coming from work, and due to the train schedule I arrived an hour before Mass was scheduled to begin. I walked from the train station to the church in a refreshingly cool evening rain. Father was hearing Confessions, and there were a small […]
» Read moreDom Mark Kirby, the Prior of Our Lady of the Cenacle Monastery (Silverstream Priory) has written a thoughtful and important article to which I’d like to draw your attention. Speaking in Vienna this week, His Eminence, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke said, “The Church’s discipline can never be other than true to her doctrine.” His Eminence was, in effect, articulating a […]
» Read moreWhat kind of life could the child possibly look forward to? He was born with a cleft palate, cerebral palsy, and spina bifida. In these progressive days, the child very well might have been aborted after the doctor showed the mother her first detailed fetal ultrasound. But the child had the great fortune to be born in 1013, a much […]
» Read moreWhither is thy Beloved gone, O thou most beautiful among women? Whither is thy Beloved turned aside, and we will seek Him with thee? We begin with the first antiphon of Lauds for today’s feast of The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Monastic Diurnal. The Blessed Virgin Mary is sometimes called Our Lady of Sorrows – […]
» Read moreVery rarely has today’s feast made much of an impression on me. I did write about it once, three years ago, because I was struck by the convergence of a beautiful dawn with the readings of the day. God is truly a poet to confound the mathematicians and a mathematician to confound the poets.
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Urged to reflect upon myself, I entered under your guidance the innermost places of my being; but only because you had become my helper was I able to do so. I entered, then, and with the vision of my spirit, such as it was, I saw the incommutable light far above my spiritual ken and transcending my mind: not this […]
» Read moreNo, not that one. Today is the feast of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Born in 1090 to a noble Burgundian family near Dijon, he entered the monastery at age 23. In less than three years, he was sent by his abbot to found a new monastery in Vallée d’Absinthe on 25 June 1115. Bernard named this new monastery Clairvaux, meaning […]
» Read moreTen years ago, on the 15th of August 2004, Francine and I walked into Saint Patrick’s Church in Tacoma. This was the Solemnity of the Assumption, and ever since we have counted this as our “Catholic anniversary”. On that day, I discovered in a moment that every doubt I ever had about the truth of Christianity had collapsed. God in […]
» Read moreToday is the principal feast (at least among the Benedictines) of Saint Benedict of Nursia, author of the great monastic rule that in large part saved western civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire. Pope Benedict XVI took his name at least in part from Saint Benedict, and the life and work of the saint was a topic that […]
» Read moreHow does the human brain wrap itself around the eternal and infinite love of God for His creation? How can can we even begin to comprehend the depth of love in Christ’s wounded heart as he pours Himself out for us sinners at Calvary? The truth is, we can’t. The saints and the mystics may catch glimpses, but we humans […]
» Read moreThe story of the Jewish people moves through Exodus to the Judges to the Kings to the Prophets. It culminates in Christ, the culmination of all things. He is Priest, Prophet, and King, and in Baptism we come to share this designation as well. We do not all share the gift of prophecy, of course, but to see it continuing […]
» Read moreThe church in which I was Baptized, Confirmed, and Married has all sorts of Christian symbols painted on the walls. One of them that always set my brain to thinking looked something like this: It is, of course, an ancient Trinitarian symbol, reminding us in a visual way that while the Father is God, and the Son is God, and […]
» Read moreWe read today in the Acts of the Apostles of this great day, which in a certain way we can celebrate as the birthday of the Church: When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire […]
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