One of the things moving from Los Angeles to Austria has taught me is the preciousness of Spring. That may sound a bit odd, but the truth is that in Southern California the lack of a snowy winter and the … Continue reading
Category: Mass and the Liturgy
Dom Guéranger on ‘the Abuse of Reciting the Canon of the Mass Aloud’
In Dom Gueranger’s wonderful set of commentaries on the Holy Mass, Explanation of the Holy Mass, the Benedictine master speaks of the grandeur of the silent canon in the Roman Rite Mass. One paragraph is a polemic against the “dangerous … Continue reading
Surviving the Wasteland
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago. —Christina Rossetti The above words and Gustav Holst’s … Continue reading
The Death of the Old Year
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing: Toll ye the church bell sad and slow, And tread softly and speak low, For the old year lies a-dying. Old year you must not die; You … Continue reading
The Christmas Proclamation from the Roman Martyrology
Here is my reading of the Roman Martyrology for Christmas, recorded in 2019 and graciously posted by Steve Cunningham to his Sensus Fidelium YouTube channel. The reading is only a little over a minute. To see the full text, with … Continue reading
The Principle of Tradition in the Liturgical Life of the Church
Embedded in the video below is Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s lecture given at the Pax Liturgica Meeting at the Augustinianum in Rome on October 27, 2023. The venerable Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Mary in Astana spoke on the … Continue reading
The Politics of Christmas
Once again, December is upon us, and so once again, the Christmas Wars. Once upon a time, in Fr. Feeney’s day, these were described by him thusly: “I do not know what Christmas in the United States is going to … Continue reading
Month of the Holy Souls
Although in the buildup to Halloween one may get tired of hearing from various sources that “the veil between the worlds is very thin this time of year,” in a certain sense it definitely feels that way in the Autumn. … Continue reading
Truth, Faith, and Charity with Dom Prosper Guéranger
Last Sunday was the feast of Christ the King, so the Mass for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost was not celebrated on that day. However, as Monday was an open liturgical day, our parish priest celebrated the propers … Continue reading
July is the Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus!
Following immediately after the month of the Sacred Heart, July is the Month of the Precious Blood. The first day of the month is the Feast of the Precious Blood. In the nineteenth century, there was a real flowering of … Continue reading
Bishop Athanasius Schneider on the Prohibition of the Traditional Liturgy as an ‘Abuse’
According to His Excellency, “The prohibition of the traditional Latin Mass is an abuse of ecclesiastical power and noncompliance with its prohibition does not in fact constitute disobedience.” Continue reading
Lex Orandi: Why What Happens in Church Matters outside of Church
This past weekend, I was a presenter at the third annual “Crusader Knights Congress” put on by Mike Church and sponsored by the Crusade Channel and LifeSite. Here is the text of that talk.