Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Mary’s month of May draws to a close with the Feast of the Visitation. This feast celebrates the visit of Mary, pregnant with Jesus, to her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist (Luke 1:39-56). So this feast is a celebration of the very first Christian community, consisting of two pregnant mothers and their unborn children. Saint Luke’s account culminates […]
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On this day in 1431, one of the most truly remarkable women who ever lived was burned at the stake. She was 19 years old. She was known as Jehanne la Pucelle (Joan the Maiden), but today we name her Saint Joan of Arc. Saint Joan at Holy Rosary, Tacoma She was canonized in 1920, and her memorial was first […]
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In Saint Patrick Church in Tacoma – the place where I was Baptized, Confirmed, and Married – there are all sorts of Christian symbols painted on the walls. One that always set my brain to thinking looks something like this: It is, of course, a Trinitarian symbol, reminding us in a visual way that while the Father is God, and […]
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Saint Rita, whose feast is today, is sometimes known as the patron saint of lost and impossible causes. Married at a young age against her will to a terrible, abusive husband, by her prayers she gradually reformed him into a proper Christian husband. After his murder, she entered the convent. This wounded saint received the marks of Christ’s thorny wounds […]
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On this day in 1917, the Blessed Virgin began appearing to three shepherd children in Fátima, Portugal. She appeared on the thirteenth day of six consecutive months, culminating in the great Miracle of the Sun. Regardless of miracles, Catholics are not obliged to believe these “private revelations”. Indeed, the Church is very careful to investigate these sorts of claims with […]
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Mary’s month of May begins with a day for her husband. Today, celebrated around the world as “International Workers’ Day” is the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. There’s poetry to the fact that the month dedicated to the Blessed Virgin begins by putting the focus on her husband, and therefore on their family life. Imagine the Holy Family of […]
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With all due respect to Saint Catherine of Siena, one of my favourite saints and whose feast day is celebrated today on the calendar of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today (at least on the Benedictine calendar!) is the feast of four great Abbots of the Benedictine Order: Saints Odo, Majolus, Odilo, and Hugh. They were all good […]
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On April 25, 1467 a mysterious icon of Virgin and Child appeared in a small unfinished and roofless church in the town of Genazzano, near Rome. As the story goes, the entire town had turned out for the annual feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, a multitude of witnesses saw a mysterious cloud […]
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Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine:et lux perpetua luceat eis.In memoria æterna erit iustus,ab auditione mala non timebit. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord:and let perpetual light shine upon her.She shall be justified in everlasting memory,and shall not fear evil reports. Absolve, Domine,animas omnium fidelium defunctorumab omni vinculo delictorumet gratia tua illis succurentemereantur evadere iudicium ultionis,et lucis æternae beatitudine perfrui. […]
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John Mark was one of the original seventy disciples (Luke 10:1 ff). Tradition holds that he was one of those who left Christ when He preached on the Bread of Life (John 6:44-6:66). Saint Peter brought him back to the faith. He traveled with Paul and Barnabas, who thought him unreliable (Acts 15:37-41). Again he left, again he came back […]
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“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” (G.K. Chesterton) Today’s feast is of the martyr Saint George. Pious legends of dragon slaying notwithstanding, George was a soldier of the Roman army who was killed during the persecutions of Diocletian in the early fourth […]
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Today, the Second Sunday in the Octave of Easter, is also known as Divine Mercy Sunday. Pope Saint 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 […]
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For the Order of Saint Benedict, today is the Solemnity of the Transitus of Saint Benedict, the anniversary of his death and birth into life eternal, in the year of our Lord 547. Of the transitus, Benedict’s biographer Pope Saint Gregory the Great writes: The same year in which he departed this life, he told the day of his holy […]
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Today on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, we would do well to meditate on the life of the man who helped raise the Son of God. It can’t have been easy. Tradition holds that Joseph was already an old man and a widower when he married the Blessed Virgin, who was very young, perhaps 16 or so. He had several […]
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Saint Patrick’s family were Roman Catholic churchmen from the Roman Imperial province of Britannia. Yet, today, nobody is going to go around speaking in fake Latin and wearing a toga and sandals, oh no. But I’ll bet you a shiny shamrock that you’ll run into at least one person affecting a fake Irish brogue. Today is a day in America […]
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Today is the memorial of the blessed martyr Saint Polycarp. Burned alive and then beheaded in the city of Rome for the crime of being a Christian bishop, he was a disciple of Saint John the Apostle. In fact, he was ordained bishop of Smyrna by Saint John. He wrote many letters, though only one has survived the centuries, his […]
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