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Loving the Lost Cause

by Brother André Marie May 21, 2012

Within the last fortnight, I finished reading The Pope’s Legion, Charles Coulombe’s book on the Papal Zouaves. Besides being intelligently written and enjoyable, the book inspires because the subject matter is itself edifying. The Pontifical Zouaves were Blessed Pius IX’s foreign legion, who fought to defend the Papal States from the anticlericals and revolutionaries that united the Italian peninsula along the lines of Freemasonic, Enlightenment … More →


Posted in Current Issues in the Church, History, Politics and Society, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | 4 Comments
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In Praise of Holy Desires

by Brother André Marie May 8, 2012

It is not true to say that the disciples of Father Feeney are against desire.1 Our public witness is directed toward bringing people to believe the true Faith, and to desire to enter Christ’s Body, the Catholic Church. God Himself, who inspires holy desires, will see to it that they are fulfilled (cf. Phil. 1:6). Desire, simply considered, is a motion toward a good we … More →


Posted in Spiritual Life, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | 10 Comments
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Honoring the First Amerindian Saint

by Brother André Marie April 24, 2012

Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha is scheduled to be canonized on October 21, 2012. Less than a month before that, she will be honored by the pilgrims walking the annual “Pilgrimage for Restoration” to Auriesville, New York. Below, I reproduce a press release that explains this year’s theme, which explicitly mentions the holy Mohawk virgin every Catholic American should love. In promoting this worthwhile event, I feel … More →


Posted in Catholic America, Catholic Living, Holy Places, Special Events, Spiritual Life, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | 2 Comments
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Ευχαριστώ! Ef Charisto! Thank you!

by Brother André Marie April 3, 2012

This Thursday, the Church celebrates that sacrosanct night when the High Priest of the New Law, Christ our God, instituted the Blessed Eucharist (εὐχαριστία – Eucharistia). This great Gift of God, which goes under various names considered under its different aspects, is preeminantly known as our “Thanksgiving.” By this Mystery, the Church renders perfect thanks to God. By It, in fact, God renders perfect thanksgiving … More →

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Posted in Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | 4 Comments
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Saint Augustine on Prayer

by Brother André Marie March 26, 2012

By the grace of God, your humble servant has recently completed his week-long Lenten retreat, which was followed immediately by the perpetual profession of two of our sisters on Passion Sunday, and today’s joyful Feast of the Annunciation. During my retreat, I was able to spend some quality time with Saint Augustine, in the form of a book that a priest-friend lent me, The Teaching … More →


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Saint John the Apostle at the Transfiguration of Christ: Bl. Fra Angelico

Lenten Transfiguration

by Brother André Marie March 6, 2012

Christians are by grace what Christ is by nature. That is to say, the members of Christ’s Body (the Catholic Church) are deified so that we, too, can be called sons of God. By grace, we are so identified with our Redeemer that His joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries become our mysteries, too. (We have termed this elsewhere the “Mystical Incarnation.”) Right now, we are … More →


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Guilt Transformed, Some Lenten Thoughts

by Brother André Marie February 25, 2012

The solemn fast of Lent is intended to convert us, to renew us, and to conform us more and more to Jesus Christ. This happens through the three means of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving — which are most powerful when joined with assisting regularly at the Church’s liturgy. One of my pet peeves with the popular conception of Lent is that it is a time … More →

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Posted in Mass and the Liturgy, Spiritual Life, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | 1 Comment
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Penance and the Conversion of America

by Brother André Marie February 18, 2012

Lent is on its way. During this penitential season of grace, the Church’s liturgy will put sentiments of penance on our lips and in our minds. She will also enjoin us, in various ways, to do works of penance. In my last Ad Rem, Christ’s Commission and Obama’s Mandate: A Teachable Moment, I made the argument that the Church in America is reaping the bitter … More →


Posted in Catholic America, Mass and the Liturgy, Spiritual Life, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | Leave a comment
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Christ’s Commission and Obama’s Mandate: A Teachable Moment

by Brother André Marie February 4, 2012

The big news in American Catholic circles is the Obama administration’s “contraceptive mandate.” This latest unethical intrusion of big government stipulates that employers, including religious institutions, provide their employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and specific abortifacients such as Ella and Plan B. Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle summarized the situation: “If this unprecedented aggression against the religious freedom rights of … More →


Posted in Catholic America, Current Issues in the Church, Morals, Politics and Society, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | 5 Comments

Traditionalism is an Affirmation

by Brother André Marie January 17, 2012

One of the most important things for a person to have is an identity. This is why names are so important to us. Adam was given power to name things in the Garden of Eden, showing that he had dominion over the rest of creation, including Eve, whom he named. When a child finds out that a large, strange-looking animal has a name, he finds … More →


Posted in Catholic Living, Current Issues in the Church, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | 12 Comments

What We Have Seen and Heard

by Brother André Marie January 4, 2012

The true religion is not a book. It is a communion — a mystical body — by which man is united to God and therefore made holy, beginning in this life a relationship that is meant to continue for all eternity in beatitude. Yes, the true faith is a revelation from on high. Yes, a portion of that revelation has been transmitted to us in … More →

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Pardon the Provocation, but ‘Merry Christmas!’

by Brother André Marie December 19, 2011

Dear Friends and Benefactors, A Christmas letter is conventionally an opportunity to express gratitude for the past, good cheer for the present, and hope for the future. This is a good convention, for these are three very Christian things. In the present circumstances of our Republic, the world, and the Church, the necessity is to supernaturalize these sentiments, especially the last two; for, in all … More →

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The Great Preparation

by Brother André Marie December 13, 2011

The Mystery of the Immaculate Conception is not something on the borderlands of the Christian religion; rather, it stands front and center in the true Faith. This is because the Immaculate Herself is so wrapped up in the divine decree for the redemption of men, that her perpetual sinlessness and fulness of grace form a continuum with what the faith teaches about Jesus (Christology) and … More →


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The Real Gospel of Life

by Brother André Marie November 21, 2011

The moral teachings of the Church are of a piece with her teachings on faith. Christ’s supernatural revelation to the Church, along with the natural law also entrusted to her, constitute a “seamless garment”1 of truth about God, man, and the destiny of man in God. To abstract one or another of the constituent truths out of this totality, and reduce the rest to a … More →


Posted in Catholic America, Current Issues in the Church, Four Last Things, Heresies and Errors, Outside the Church there is no Salvation, Politics and Society, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | 8 Comments

Monologue with a Madman

by Brother André Marie November 8, 2011

Some months back, I received a telephone call from a sedevacantist madman who challenged me to a debate on whether Pope Benedict XVI is the pope. This individual should know that debates are not the way we do our apostolate. I have nothing against debating, but we engage in other apostolates that take up our time, I believe, more profitably: publishing, street evangelism, our school, … More →

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Posted in Current Issues in the Church, Heresies and Errors, Polemics, Theology, «Ad Rem» A Weekly Email Message from the Prior | 13 Comments