The essence of a cliché is that it is unoriginal and often repeated. However, as the old Latin phrase goes, repetita iuvant… repeated things help. Allow me to get an initial cliché out of the way: with the 1st Sunday of Advent we begin a new liturgical year. There. But wait. Perhaps it isn’t cliché…
Excita, quaesumus, Domine, tuorum fidelium voluntates… Stir up the wills of your people, O Lord… Thus begins the Collect for Holy Mass for this 24th and Last Sunday after Pentecost. In a few short days, shorter and shorter in the Northern Hemisphere, we will again come to Advent and a new liturgical year. Meanwhile, this…
Year in and year out we celebrate the liturgical cycles. Year in and year out the cycles do not change. We do. With each round through the sacred liturgical year, we are different. We’ve had our ups and downs, our good and bad, our growth and decline, our gains and losses. We therefore are able…
Some people might be scratching their heads wondering how we wind up with a “resumed” Sunday, sometimes called “remaining” or “left over” (Latin superfuit), after Epiphany in the month of November. Isn’t Epiphany at the beginning of January? So how can Sundays be “left over” and then “resumed”? Here is what happened. In the historic…
The royal families of Europe were falling one by one. Secularist atheistic materialism was on the rise. In the wake of the gory First World War Pope Pius XI looked out over the world and, in 1922, issued an encyclical letter Ubi arcano which directed people to the “Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of…
A short time ago, I ran into a claim that in the near future devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus would be more and more important. Think about how our ecclesial pastors have, through neglect and even expressions of contempt, downplayed and eroded the pious devotional practices of the faithful. Hence, I am inclined…
Collect: Keep Thy household, O Lord, with continual loving-kindness, that by Thy protection it may be free from all adversities and devoted to Thy name in well-doing. Epistle: Ephesians vi. 10-17 Gospel: Matthew xviii. 23-35 An image of the torments of Hell attributed to spiritual writers of note, in particular St. Augustine of Hippo (+430), caught…
“Brethren: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Eph 5:15-16 RSV). True in St. Paul’s day. Perhaps even more so in our day. If…
Collect: Almighty and merciful God, in Thy loving-kindness do Thou keep us from all things that war against us, that, being unhampered alike in soul and in body, we may with free minds perform the works that are Thine. Epistle: Ephesians iv. 23-28 Gospel: Matthew xxii. 2-14 When this Sunday comes around, with its snappy…
Collect: Let the operation of Thy mercy, we beseech Thee, O Lord, direct our hearts, for without Thee we cannot please Thee. Epistle: I Corinthians i. 4-6 Gospel: Matthew ix. 1-8 In the northern hemisphere, the shift is on from summer to autumn. In the sequence of Sundays, Holy Church – which rose and expanded…
Collect: Grant Thy people, O Lord, to shun the defilements of the devil, and with pure hearts to follow Thee, the only God. Epistle: Ephesians 4:1-6 Gospel: Matthew 22:35-46 As I write, it is the Jewish high holy day Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur falls in the Hebrew calendar on the tenth…
