The 10 Most Popular Posts of 2022
Once again, it’s time for our annual look back at the year that was. Who doesn’t like top ten lists? These are the top ten post hits on the blog for this past year. This is now the sixth annual list, so I guess it now falls under the rubric of venerable custom.
Only one of the posts receiving the hits was actually written this year. That tells me I need to up my writing! I’m finding that the posts on liturgical resources and reviews continue to be popular. Our most spectacular new entry on the list is, weirdly, a five-year-old post on Pope Saint Gregory the Great.
There are big gaps in terms of numbers between numbers 1 and 2 and numbers 3 and 4.
And as always, there are links in each title to the full article.
TEN: Antiphony Reborn: Singing the Mass Propers
Posted on (2021: 10th)
Does Sunday Mass in your parish start with a hymn? Why? Did you know that the Church actually provides scripture to be read or sung during the entrance of the Priest and servers?
This, my friends, is the Entrance Antiphon or, to give it its traditional name, the Introit. In a talk he gave at the recent Sacred Liturgy Conference, Monsignor Andrew Wadsworth, Director of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, called the antiphons a “musical lectio on the day”.
Would you replace the First Reading at Mass with a chapter from Jonathan Livingston Seagull? How about replacing the Responsorial Psalm with “On Eagle’s Wings”? No?
Then why replace the Entrance Antiphon with “Here I am, Lord”? …
NINE: Monastic Diurnal
Posted on 18 July 2014 (2020: 9th)
This arrived in the post today. It’s the seventh edition of the Monastic Diurnal, published in 2011 by Saint Michael’s Abbey Press. You can purchase it in the United States from Clear Creek Abbey. …
EIGHT: Pope Saint Gregory the Great
Posted on 12 March 2018
Only a handful of Popes ever get named “Great”. Today on my Benedictine Ordo is the feast of one of them, Pope Saint Gregory the Great, confessor and doctor of the Church (540 – 604) ….
SEVEN: Settling into Our New Parish Home
Posted on 05 December, 2022
About six months ago, we became parishioners again at Saint Patrick parish in Tacoma, coming home to the place where I was baptized and confirmed, and where Francine and I were married. We came to this point after long discernment, some of which occurred on our most recent Camino. It’s wonderful just to be able to walk to daily Mass (work schedule permitting). …
SIX: The Road to Hell is Paved with the Skulls of Bishops
Posted on (2021: 5th)
So 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: …
FIVE: Sancte Joseph, Terror Dæmonum, Ora Pro Nobis
Posted on (2021: 4th)
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 children already (Saint James the Less comes to mind), and the children needed a mother. Mary’s parents, Saints Joachim and Anne, were also very old, and the young girl would need a protector. It was, perhaps, a marriage of convenience for all concerned. …
FOUR: All Saints of the Benedictine Order
Posted on (2021: 9th)
Once again we come to a feast of All Saints. “But wait!” I hear you cry, “wasn’t that back on the first of November?”
Right you are! But today on the Benedictine calendar is the feast of All Saints of the Benedictine Order. …
THREE: Rorate Mass Resources – in the Ordinary Form
Posted on 12 December 2018 (2019: 8th, 2020: 4th, 2021: 1st)
… our parish of Holy Rosary celebrated a Rorate Mass in the Ordinary Form. And what, pray tell, is a Rorate Mass?
The name comes from the opening words of the Entrance Antiphon, Rorate cæli desuper, Latin for “Drop down dew, ye heavens”. The Rorate Mass is a Solemn Votive Mass in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrated in Advent. It is traditionally celebrated by candlelight on the high altar, and sung in Gregorian Chant. The sky is dawning just as it finishes. This is to symbolize the coming of Christ, the Light of the World. …
TWO: Vesting Prayers
Posted on 29 March 2017 (2018: 6th; 2019: 7th, 2020: 3rd, 2021: 3rd)
One of my volunteer positions at my parish is that of MC and Altar Server coordinator. Since I started in that position, we’ve made any number of changes. One of the simplest and most profound, though, was the reintroduction of Vesting Prayers.
And what are they? In the immemorial tradition of the Roman Rite, certain prayers were recited while vesting for Mass. Indeed, each vestment had its own specific prayer, that alluded to the symbolic meaning behind that particular vestment.
Such things weirdly fell out of favour following the liturgical reform. …
ONE: Review: Monastic Diurnal at One Year
Posted on 24 July 2015 (2016: 1st; 2017: 1st; 2018: 2nd; 2019: 3rd, 2020: 1st, 2021: 2nd)
Although I’ve prayed some form of the Divine Office since before my baptism, just over a year ago I began using the Farnborough Monastic Diurnal. It is only at this point that I feel confident enough to review it. …
Just one new post on the list, with many old stalwarts. I’m particularly pleased at how strongly the Rorate and Vesting Prayers posts continue to perform, and Antiphony continues to hang on to its spot in the top 10.
What was your favorite this year? Any favorites that didn’t make the list?
Thank you to each and every one of my readers. You guys are the best.