Today’s Gospel is a startling contrast to last week’s. Last week, we saw Our Lord in the desert hungry from a forty-day fast, being tempted by the devil. The Church took great pains to show us Our Lord doing penance … Continue reading

Today’s Gospel is a startling contrast to last week’s. Last week, we saw Our Lord in the desert hungry from a forty-day fast, being tempted by the devil. The Church took great pains to show us Our Lord doing penance … Continue reading
You will find nothing in the world’s literature that matches St. Paul’s “sublime Canticle of Charity” (Fr. Plassmann) in today’s epistle. This encomium to the divine love that is infused in our souls at baptism is singularly precious. Far from … Continue reading
The Name. We are in Septuagesima season, which began last week, with Septuagesima Sunday — the name comes from the word for seventy. It’s about seventy days before Easter. Today is Sexagesima Sunday: about 60 days until Easter. The Gospel. … Continue reading
We may go farther, and say, not only does holy Mass not hinder our work: it does more, it furthers it, as experience has often proved. It is related of St. Isidore, a Spanish saint of comparatively humble birth, that he was engaged by a wealthy nobleman of Madrid to cultivate his lands for a fixed annual salary. He fulfilled his duty with exemplary industry, but without discontinuing Continue reading
Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Expectation. This feast has an interesting history that Brother Andre reviewed for us this morning in his morning meditation in our chapel. In Spain, this feast day is Nuestra Senora de … Continue reading
From the pen of the intrepid Dom Guéranger, that monkish powerhouse of Catholic piety and erudition, comes this brief rundown of the two battles in whose memory the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary was gratefully instituted: Manicheism, revived … Continue reading
Three days ago, I posted a notice concerning a significant book by Monsignor Brunero Gherardini. Today, I would like to give a hat tip to Carlos Antonio Palad at Rorate Caeli for making public another major monsignoral moment for tradition. … Continue reading
If there is one common theme in today’s Mass it is confidence: confidence in God, in the promise of the Holy Ghost which we received at Pentecost, confidence in the Church, and confidence that present difficulties can and will come … Continue reading
We are still in what used to be the Octave of Corpus Christi. Even though this octave was done away with in the 1962 rubrics, its ghost still lurks about the liturgy. We will, this Friday, have the feast of … Continue reading
The British author and translator of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Dorothy Sayers, once wrote a spoof catechism based upon what most people really know of their Faith. When she came to the doctrine of the Trinity she has this question and … Continue reading
Two feasts every year. One a double major, the other a double of the first class!
This ancient Latin axiom is quoted so often, I thought a little explanation of it on our web site would be helpful. A paraphrase of a longer patristic expression, the phrase means, “the law of praying is the law of … Continue reading
On Easter Sunday, during its Octave, and on the first Sunday after Easter, the Roman Missal presents us with a different Gospel reading every day. All of these relate what happened on the day of Our Lord’s triumphant Resurrection. The … Continue reading
My thoughts are full of the recent wedding of my son. There is a great deal involved leading up to this major event: the prayerful choice of a vocation, the months of courtship, the endless details, the physical and emotional … Continue reading
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