Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Most High, all powerful, good Lord, Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor, and all blessing. To You alone, Most High, do they belong, and no man is worthy to mention Your name. Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he […]
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Do you pray to your Guardian Angel? Do you ask them for advice or help? Why not? The Church teaches that we all receive a guardian angel at birth, an angel assigned to guide and protect us, to watch over us. As it says in scripture: There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy […]
» Read moreThis beautiful, rainy Saturday is the “Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels” or, in the old calendar, the “Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Michael the Archangel”. Whatever you call it, the most common name is Michaelmas. It is one of several harvest festivals celebrated throughout Christian Europe. In England this is one of the “quarter days”, which […]
» 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 moreThere’s something deeply poetic about God’s continual use of the lowly and marginalized to proclaim His majesty and His Truth. Let’s review; the ancient Hebrews were not exactly on par with mighty Egypt or Babylon, Assyria or Hatti, Greece or Rome, in terms of power and prestige among nations of the ancient world. The father or their nation, Abraham? A […]
» Read moreSo saith today’s saint, the incomparable Saint John Chrysostom (c. 347–407). He was, of course, himself a bishop. It seems that this pithy quote is a popularization of the full (attributed) quote, where the saint is talking about the relatively few in number who will be saved and the bad shepherds who are responsible: The road to Hell is paved […]
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Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu died on this day in 1997, widely regarded throughout the world as a saint. You’ve no idea who she is, do you? She famously said “By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely […]
» Read moreToday is one of the more interesting feasts on the liturgical calendar, for today is the feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. OK, nowadays they’ve slightly sanitized the name; it’s now officially called the “Memorial of the Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist”, but for the sheer Catholic joy of calling a spade a spade, I’m sticking […]
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I am a Polish Catholic priest. I would like to take the place of this man, since he has a wife and children.” (Saint Maximilian Kolbe, OFM Con., taking the place of fellow prisoner Franciszek Gajowniczek at Auschwitz. Kolbe died on August 14, 1941, after being administered a lethal injection.) Because God’s glory shines through most brightly in the salvation […]
» Read moreToday is the feast of the deacon martyr, Saint Lawrence. There are so many stories about him, that it’s hard to sum him up briefly. In the confused days after the martyrdom of Pope Sixtus, the administration of the Roman churches fell to the Deacon, Lawrence. He was captured by the Imperial authorities, but he bargained for his release. The […]
» Read moreSantiago, Saint James the Greater, was one of Christ’s Twelve Apostles. His feast is celebrated today. He and his brother John were natives of Galilee, sons of the fisherman Zebedee and his wife Salome, whom the Eastern Christians name Myrrh-bearer. They were disciples of John the Baptist, but the Baptist sent them to Jesus. So fiery were these two brothers, […]
» Read moreOn July 20, 1969, man first set foot upon the Moon. The project that took us to the Moon was called Apollo, ostensibly after the Greek god associated with hunting, harmony, and healing. Perhaps the folks over at NASA had sense of humour, or maybe God the poet was at work again, for July 20 is also the feast of […]
» Read moreBoth of my readers will recall that I often reread the Desert Fathers during Lent. Today is the feast day of one of them, Saint Arsenius. He was a wealthy, educated man who gave up everything to worship God in the desert. Quite a contrast with yesterday’s feast of Saint Arnulf of Metz! Benedicta Ward gives the following summary of […]
» Read moreOn this, the Feast of Saint Arnulf of Metz (c. 582 — 640), patron saint of brewers, let us hoist a tankard to his memory and say a prayer for his intercession. For some reason, the English found “Arnulf” too difficult, so in many English-language resources he is known as “Arnold”. Go figure. It was July 642 and very hot […]
» Read moreYou might remember that I’ve been using the 1962 “A Short Breviary” for my daily office lately. Calendar issues aside, it has been a fruitful experience. Yesterday, however, I ran into a bit of a snag. Yesterday was the Feast of Saint Benedict. I didn’t expect to find an office commemorating his feast on the day, since before the calendar […]
» Read moreBenedict! The man who saved European civilization! The man who invented western monasticism! I‘ve often written of him, and of his sister Saint Scholastica. The very foundation of this blog was the monastic movement that Benedict began 1500 years ago. Frankly, you’re probably sick of hearing my blatherings. What we need is somebody way smarter than me to sum him […]
» Read moreToday is the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle. Except when it isn’t. The feast days of most saints are the day they died. For Thomas, today is properly the feast commemorating “the Translation of Saint Thomas” – the day on which his relics were translated (moved) from Mylapore in India to Edessa in Mesopotamia in A.D. 232. Presumably, this […]
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