Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
By an extraordinary coincidence, today is the feast day of both the saint who gave the Divine Mercy devotion to the world, and of one of the disciples of Saint Benedict. Interestingly, neither of these feasts are on the universal calendar. Saint Mary Faustina Kowalska (1905 – 1938) was a Polish nun who received a vision of Christ as the […]
» Read moreSaint Jerome should be the patron saint of grumpy old men. Born in the Roman province of Dalmatia in modern Slovenia, he studied in Rome starting in about the year 360. During a journey to Syria in 373, he fell ill and had a vision that caused him to devote the rest of his long life to the service of […]
» Read moreToday is officially 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 was marked […]
» Read moreToday we celebrate the feasts of two very different men. One lived in the first century and probably died a martyr. The other lived during the 20th century and died at the ripe old age of 81. One was the disciple of Peter and Paul, becoming the second Pope after Saint Peter’s martrydom. The other was a simple Capuchin friar. […]
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Today at 9:30AM, a small vial of dried blood in Naples turned to liquid, as it has done several times a year since at least the 1380s. A great crowd had gathered to witness this event. The man holding up the vial, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples, was nearly brought to tears. The announcement was greeted by a […]
» Read moreDear Saint Monica, troubled wife and mother, many sorrows pierced your heart during your lifetime. Yet, you never despaired or lost faith. With confidence, persistence, and profound faith, you prayed daily for the conversion of your beloved husband, Patricius, and your beloved son, Augustine; your prayers were answered. Grant me that same fortitude, patience, and trust in the Lord. Intercede […]
» Read moreOn July 20, 1969, man first set foot upon the Moon. On July 20, 2011, the last flight of the last Space Shuttle is heading to a close. Perhaps appropriately, the (hopefully temporary) ending of the US manned space flight was aboard Shuttle Atlantis. It certainly gave me a sinking feeling. But the project that took us to the Moon […]
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On this, the Feast of Saint Benedict, I thought I’d ruminate on the meaning of “reform”. Typically, when the Church, or some organization within the Church, has talked about reform, the word pretty specifically meant clearing out the laxness and shortcuts that had appeared in practices, devotions, and liturgy. The fact is, all organizations staffed by humans tend to get […]
» Read moreToday the Church celebrates one of her oldest feasts, commemorating the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul. I prayed at the tombs of these apostles during my time in Rome in 2005. With the body of Blessed John Paul II mere feet from me, I knelt near Peter’s tomb at the high altar of the dark and nearly empty Vatican […]
» 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 moreToday is the memorial of Saint Thomas More, about whom I have briefly blathered before, principally about my confusion between him and Saint Thomas Becket. The story of his life was (more or less) made into the wonderful movie, A Man for All Seasons, starring Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More. The script is just brilliant, and eminently quotable. The […]
» Read moreThere are those who think that the Church is being a little hasty in the process of conferring sainthood on Blessed Pope John Paul II. He has reached the penultimate stage of the process – beatification – only six years after his death. I wonder what these folks would have thought about the process taken in the case of Saint […]
» Read moreIn the old calendar, the one still used in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces. Here’s where many folks go off the rails in castigating the Church as non-Christian. Mediatrix of All Graces? Isn’t Christ our mediator? Does not the scripture say For there is one God. There is […]
» Read moreMary’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 (Gospel of Saint Luke, Chapter 1 verses 39 – 56). Luke’s account culminates in one of the great New Testament songs, Mary’s Magnificat, which we recite at […]
» Read moreToday is a day of many memorials. In the United States, it is a Federal holiday honouring those men and women who died in the military service. While in the popular media this has become merely an excuse for a three-day weekend and countless barbeques, many folks, myself included, hang out the flag and do our best to honour the […]
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In many cultures throughout the world, a person will take a new name at a new phase of their life: birth, coming of age – really any of the great passages of life. Even in cultures where this is not a formal (re)naming, we often take or are given nicknames that stick with us. We are reinvented in college, or […]
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Today is the feast of a most remarkable saint, Peter Celestine. Pietro Angelerio was born in the village of Sant’Angelo Limosano, in south-central Italy, in the year 1215. At age 17, he became a Benedictine monk. By the time he was in his thirties, his abbot had given him permission to enter a hermitage in a cave. He became famed […]
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