Positive trajectories and luminous developments are a rare commodity in our current ecclesial environment, despite this being part and parcel of the mission of the Church. Therefore, it was with a surprised enthusiasm that I greeted the news of the forthcoming broadcast of a TLM accompanied by Frank La Rocca’s Mass of the Americas on…
There was a time before my own married and family life that a friend of mine slyly described this vocation as “a beautiful bed of roses … only that somebody forgot to de-thorn the roses.” I am told that much like married and family life, clerical life also frequently gives a dose of prickling reality…
An unseasonably warm and moodily rainy November 4 in Chicago saw artists and patrons from around the nation gathering for the Second Annual Catholic Art Guild Conference and Gala. Titled “Formed by Beauty,” this event was an opportunity for artists, musicians, composers, architects, writers, and their patrons and supporters to gather for high-level discussion, networking,…
The darkness of our time often feels like a liturgical anti-incense, a dense smog that can be only temporarily fanned away before quickly returning to choke us again. This metaphor is a ripe one for Catholic lay action, because while a single person cannot fan away the smoke of Satan for long, a small but…
Image: Screengrab (YouTube/Vogue) The MET Gala has long been an elitist cultural touchstone in New York City, a high profile and bedazzling gathering of Hollywood, fashion, and art elites. With the aim of raising money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, this “Oscars of the East Coast” asks guests to dress in accordance…
Deep in the heart of winter near the longest night of the year, as a child my heart was graced annually by one of the great traditions of Christendom. It was ultimately an experience which kept me deeply tied to my Catholic roots even during later years spent in temporary disbelief, and it imbued in…
All photos courtesy of Ruth Durkin. On the Feast of the Christ the King, the center of the faithful Catholic world was briefly focused on the Drake Hotel in Chicago, IL, as over 200 members of the Catholic Art Guild, their supporters, and patrons met for their first annual “Conference on Beauty and the restoration…
Signs of the Holy One: Liturgy, Ritual, and Expression of the Sacred Fr. Uwe Michael Lang Ignatius Press, 2015 180 pages $9.99 Kindle; $19.95 Paperback In recent years Fr. Uwe Michael Lang’s talk on sacred art, music, and aesthetics has been one of the most effective such presentations available on the internet. Fr. Lang has since…
Saint John Paul II, in his prescient Letter to Artists, reminded us that “The Church needs art,” and that art needs the Church. While much of the Catholic world has forgotten about this document, it fell like a thunderbolt amongst Christian artists, helping further intensify the growing rebirth of spiritual synergy between art and Mother…
“The talk might turn in any direction,” chronicled Warnie Lewis, “[always featuring] the cut and parry of prolonged, fierce, masculine argument and “the rigour of the game.” Later Warnie would chronicle that Out would come a manuscript, and we would settle down to sit in judgment upon it – real unbiased judgement, too, since we…
Perhaps the most prolific living Catholic author in the English language, Michael O’Brien has been thrilling us with theologically rich and emotionally poignant works of fiction for over twenty years. He recently returned to finish one of his most popular tales – Fr. Elijah – with the sequel, Fr. Elijah in Jerusalem. The short (by…
Please help us to meet our expenses by donating today!
