In our year-long course on music at Wyoming Catholic College, students read and discuss a chapter from Joseph Ratzinger’s book A New Song for the Lord, “The Image of the World and of Human Beings in the Liturgy and Its Expression in Church Music,” one of the best things ever written about church music. Ratzinger masterfully…
Part I | Part II The fundamental problem with Praise & Worship In the first part of this essay, I offered a critique of the profane stylistic traits of Praise & Worship music, whether “soft” or “hard.”[1] Praise & Worship music is not suitable for liturgical use. Its style reinforces a false conception of the…
Part I | Part II Whenever the popes speak about sacred (i.e., liturgical) music, the very first quality they put forward is holiness or sanctity, which they describe as a certain worthiness of or suitability for the celebration of the sacred mysteries of Christ, and freedom from worldliness or even that which is suggestive of…
It is the simple truth: God created us for happiness. Not jealous of the good He has (or rather is), God fashioned finite intellectual beings—angels and men—capable of sharing His good through knowledge and love, and thus capable of entering into His eternal joy. We honor and love Him by seeking and welcoming this gift…
In my life, I have often encountered people who say something like the following to Catholics who love the traditional liturgy—or, for that matter, who wish to see the modern liturgy celebrated in a manner manifestly in continuity with its predecessor: “You’re making too much of incidental things. No matter what form or style, it’s…
Part 4 of a 4-part series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Part 4: The Wisdom of the Church and Her Understanding of Man In this final article, I will speak of the great wisdom of the Church’s understanding of the need for purification, a need that extends not only to the life to come,…
Part 3 of a 4-part series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Part 3: Purgatory—The Attractive Impulse of His Burning Love Contemplating the prospects of heaven and hell helps us to see the purpose, indeed the necessity, of a state of purgatory, where a soul dying in God’s favor is made ready to behold the…
Part 2 of a 4-part series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Part 2: Throwing Yourself Away, or Yielding Yourself to God In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses how each man holds a kind of “inner conversation” with himself, reflecting on what he has already done and thinking about what he will do in days…
Part 1 of a 4-part series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Part 1: Hell is Real, and You Could Go There If one were to sample the doctrine of today’s sermons and books, one would think that every human being who has ever been and ever will be follows the high road to heaven. No…
Education, from the Latin ex-ducere, means “to lead out”—so the logical question is, lead out from what? From ignorance, error, and sin, into knowledge, truth, and holiness. It is a reflection of the journey of Israel, led from slavery in Egypt to freedom in Canaan. True education presupposes the Christian revelation of man’s fallen plight and…
Many people have expressed an interest in hearing or reading the lecture I gave at Franciscan University of Steubenville earlier this week. The lecture wasn’t taped, but the full text is now available at Rorate Caeli. Apart from my book, this lecture is the closest I’ve come to a sort of “manifesto” of the reasons…
