Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
This Wednesday evening at 8:00pm, our parish of Holy Rosary will celebrate a Tenebræ service. You are most welcome to join us. What is Tenebræ? The word itself is Latin for “shadows”. It is a Holy Week service tied to the prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours, being a concatenation of Matins and Lauds, anticipated the night before. In […]
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The feast of Saint Valentine was removed from the Roman calendar during the reforms of 1969. It seems a shame, since this is one of a vanishingly small number of saint’s feasts that have remained in the secular culture. It seems to me that it could be used as a touchstone for the new evangelization. Mind you, he’s still in […]
» Read moreIf you live in the area, please join us as we celebrate Vespers every Sunday during Lent at 6:00pm at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, Tacoma. Sunday Schedule for Lent: Mass: Noon to 1:15 PM Adoration: 1:15 PM to 6:00 PM Vespers: 6:00 PM to 6:30 PM
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Faith and reason are like the two shoes you wear on your journey. You get a lot farther with both than just one. (J. Michael Straczynski) 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 Catholic – you […]
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Over the years, some people have asked me why I prefer the (ancient) monastic Divine Office to the modern Liturgy of the Hours. Let me hasten to assure you that both are equally valid. Both are the prayer of the Church, for the Church. Indeed, to these we could add the Extraordinary Form’s Divinum Officium, the various Eastern rites, as […]
» Read moreHappy eighth day of Christmas, a very happy new year, and a most blessed Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God to you! First, a word about the eighth day, and then we’ll move on to Mary. Christmas is celebrated as a day, an octave, and a season. The celebration of the octave – that is, the day and the week […]
» 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 moreWith 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, […]
» Read moreIt is altogether right and proper that we should celebrate Christ as the bringer of light on this, the day of the winter solstice. This was an ancient holy day in many religions, as indeed it continues to be. On this, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, where people for eons have begged their divinity for […]
» Read moreIf you can, won’t you please join us this evening at 6:00 PM for chanted Solemn Vespers at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary parish in Tacoma? Continuing on with our annual tradition, we come closer and closer to the birth of the Messiah, “the holy one, the true, who holds the key of David, who opens and no one […]
» Read moreBy now some of you might be thinking that the O Antiphon words are sounding kind of familiar, even though you’re not really up on your Gregorian Chant. In fact, these antiphons are some of the earliest attested antiphons in the Divine Office, being mentioned in passing in the works of Saint Boethius in the early sixth century. They’re rooted […]
» Read moreToday is the second “O” antiphon, O Adonai. It has been a long time since I’ve sung these properly. Perhaps as much as eight years? Time has a way of slipping past, almost before you know it. As much as I love that we’re chanting Sunday Vespers for Advent in my parish, I very much wish that it was a […]
» Read moreO Wisdom! Advent is drawing to its close, and it’s time again for our annual look at the O Antiphons. These antiphons are part of the prayers at the liturgical hour of Vespers for the 17th through the 23rd of December – the 24th is of course the Christmas Vigil itself. They are ancient prayers, possibly dating back to the […]
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This past weekend has been what we at Pistachio House sometimes refer to as a “churchy weekend”: three Masses and chanted Vespers. The first of these was a new experience for us. At 6:30 on Saturday morning, we attended an Extraordinary Form Rorate Mass at Saint Joseph. This is a votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin celebrated in Advent. Since […]
» Read moreFor the Sundays of Advent, my parish of Holy Rosary in Tacoma has been chanting Vespers. It has been glorious! If you have not yet come to Vespers, I encourage you to do so. Here is the schedule for the rest of Advent: December 6: Solemn Vespers December 13: Simple Vespers December 20: Solemn Vespers We are celebrating according to […]
» Read moreTomorrow on my Benedictine calendar is something called “Illation of the Relics of Saint Benedict”. I have absolutely no idea what this may mean. There are two feasts of Saint Benedict with which I am familiar: March 21: date of the saint’s death (I Class Feast on the Benedictine Calendar) July 11: in commemoration of the translation of his relics […]
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