The Church, in her ancient wisdom, does a striking thing on this greatest of feasts. After the dark austerity of Lent, after the long stripping away of liturgical ornaments and consolations, after the silence and stillness and blackness of the tomb, she sets before us on Easter morning an Epistle that glitters with Paschal theology…
St. Alphonsus on the 5th Dolor of Mary.
From the pre-Lent Sundays onward, Holy Mother Church has led us into a liturgical dying. First there was the silencing of the Alleluia and the Gloria. Violet appeared on Sundays as a herald of the coming fast. Then Lent itself deepened the deprivation day by day, save for the interruption of the greater feasts. Flowers…
This book changed everything for me. But I also believe it (and this Italian tradition) has a providential role to play in our time.
Each worthy Communion becomes a moment of transfiguration within the communicant’s soul.
The sacred Forty Days open at Rome’s Cathedral, the Papal Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran, the “Mother and Head of all the churches of the City and of the world.” The Roman Station anchors our Lent in a concrete place, as it…
Are you wiling to suffer for sinners?
This is why the spiritual writers identify the predominant fault as one of the three pillars of the spiritual life, together with prayer and spiritual reading. If we focus on this, our other sins will also be overcome.
Context is important. We are in “Gesima” time, Pre-Lent, a time of preparation for the time of preparation for Easter. Holy Church, with the sober maternal realism of one who knows human nature, reminds us that obligations are coming due. After this “Sunday in the Fiftieth”, Quinquagesima, in three days comes Ash Wednesday and the…
Resolve to spend 15 minutes each morning in mental prayer.
What unifies the Mass of Sexagesima is neither its obvious placement between Septuagesima and Quinquagesima, nor the recurrence of penitential purple and the suppression of the Alleluia, but rather a demanding question posed by Holy Mother Church to her children as she stands at the threshold of Lent. Are you prepared to be drawn into…
