Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Originally published at Pilgrims on the Way Ten years ago today, I posted here about my “nervousness, elation, and even fear” as I got ready to fly to Spain to walk our first Camino. To my great surprise, 137 days from today I will fly to Lyon, France for another adventure. From there, I’ll take light rail from the delightfully […]
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This past Sunday, after having served at two Masses at my parish, I had the great privilege to be bedside at the death of one of my friends. She had survived cancer, only to be cut down by an infection that ravaged her immune-compromised body. She was unconscious every time I visited hospital, but I think I was able to […]
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A week ago we celebrated Lætare Sunday, a burst of joy in the midst of Lent. This coming week, the week before Holy Week, we double-down on Lent. Traditionally, this weekend’s Fifth Sunday of Lent marks the beginning of Passiontide, when we walk with Christ on the way to Jerusalem. In the Ordinary Form this is no longer celebrated as […]
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The mercy of God is a scandal – Christ offers His infinite mercy to every worst kind of sinner, excluding no one. This eternal upwelling of mercy overflows, cascading upon the whole of the human race. It extends to murderers. It extends to rapists. It extends to thieves, and liars, and stalkers, and vandals. It extends to tax collectors and […]
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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 transferred 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 […]
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Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast. Today is the fourth Sunday of Lent – Lætare Sunday, so called for the first word of today’s entrance antiphon, lætare, rejoice. Deep in our long Lent comes a spark of rejoicing before we head deeper into the […]
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Well that got your attention, didn’t it? It’s not quite true of course; Patrick may have been born on the isle of Britain, but in a time before the Angles had arrived and started making it Angland. No, his family were Roman Catholic churchmen from the Roman Imperial province of Britannia. Today, nobody is going to go around speaking in […]
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On this, the tenth anniversary of the papacy of Pope Francis, join me in praying this ancient prayer for the Pope. It has been frequently set to music, including in the venerable Liber Usualis. V. Let us pray for Francis, the Pope.R. May the Lord preserve him, give him a long life, make him blessed upon the earth, and may the […]
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During Lent, I am often reminded of this, one of my favourite stories from the Desert Fathers: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my […]
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Archbishop Paul Etienne has granted to the faithful of the Archdiocese of Seattle a dispensation from the obligation to abstain from meat on Friday, March 17, 2023 the commemoration of Saint Patrick. Of course, I belong to Saint Patrick parish in Tacoma, and this day is our patronal solemnity. Therefore, we were dispensed anyway – but it’s nice to see […]
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The first Sunday of Lent approaches! The modern Roman Missal has a set of rubrics that cover the whole of Lent, before digging into each day separately. Most folks are familiar with number 4, and I’d venture to say that 3 is not exactly unknown to priests and ministers, if not the folks in the pews. But what’s up with […]
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Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” And with those words, our Lent has begun. Holy Mother Church calls us to make these next forty days until Easter a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Lent is a pilgrimage, in a sense, through time if not space, through death to resurrection. A pilgrimage of penitence. Let […]
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Already tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. Where has the time gone? It seems like Christmas just ended. In previous years, my home Archdiocese of Seattle has published “Lenten Regulations” to remind us what is expected of every Christian during Lent. Since last year, however, they have taken a different approach. Instead, we have a web page […]
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Saint Valentinus of Terni The feast of Saint Valentine was removed from the Roman calendar during the calendar reform of 1970. 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. […]
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Saint Benedict was the founder of western monasticism; to this day, most monks and nuns worldwide follow some variation of his “Little Rule for Beginners“. Benedict had a twin sister, Scholastica, whose feast day is today. Under her brother’s guidance, she founded the first female monastery in the west. I often think that their parents had a sense of humour, […]
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After last year’s short, sharp Camino Primitivo, we’re already planning for what I am calling “the long Camino” in the spring of 2024. Like our original 2013 Camino, Francine is planning to only walk part of the route, most likely the first ten or so days and the last week or two. I’m planning to begin in the French city […]
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