Epistle: 1 Peter 2:11-19 Gospel: John 16:16-22 O God, who to those that go astray dost show the light of Thy truth, that they may return to the path of justice: grant that all who are enrolled in the Christian faith, may both reject all that is hostile to that name, and follow after what…
Let us consider an intriguing dilemma that has occupied the minds of all involved in the Liturgical Movement since its beginning: the novel principle of active participation (participatio actuosa), which Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy promoted as “the aim to be achieved before all else.” It all started with Dom Lambert Beauduin’s accusation that the…
Twenty twenty is the 640th year since the death, on April 29, and the 50th since the proclamation as Doctor of the Church, on October 4, of a woman who played a primary role in the Church of her time: St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380). How can we fail to be filled with wonder at…
The pandemic pandemonium of the coronavirus — in its volatile mixture of undeniable physical evils and the superimposed moral evils of social engineering by political elites only too happy to take advantage of a global train wreck — has brought before Christians once again the ancient question of why the good and the wicked alike…
If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as share in our sufferings, you will also share in our…
Rule number one is “have no other gods before me.” Again and again throughout Scripture, idol-worship is followed by plague and general devastation. The plagues against the Egyptians are the most famous, but most often God strikes His own people with pestilence and plague as retribution for falling away and worshiping other gods. Old Testament…
Epistle: 1 Peter 2:21-25 Gospel: John 10:11-16 O God, Who, by the humility of Thy Son didst lift up a fallen world, grant unending happiness to Thy faithful: that those whom Thou hast snatched from the perils of endless death, Thou mayest cause to rejoice in everlasting joys. – From the Collect for Second Sunday…
The rising unemployment numbers in the United States, which are the natural consequence of an economic shutdown, brought the American middle class to its knees. Ten million (and growing) Americans were laid off in a short span of just two weeks. Individuals applying for unemployment insurance were told that it would take weeks to receive…
The Old Covenant is not abolished. All our male children are circumcised on the eighth day (Lev. 12:3). We make sure to do no work on the seventh day, and we put to death whoever does any work (Ex. 35:2). We offer all our firstfruits to the Lord (Deut. 26:1–2). We keep all the feasts…
I wanted to learn how to chant. Those inky little square notes zigzagging across the four-line staff were as exciting to me as the markings on a pirate treasure map. My first attempts were in large scholas in which experienced chanters guided the whole group the same way foreign guides shepherd timid tourists: they know…
We have heard it all before. “The Second Vatican Council was not the problem; the problem was the ‘Spirit of Vatican II.’ The documents themselves are not that bad. Modernists hijacked the confusion after the Council, Traditionalists who bash Vatican II probably don’t even know anything about the documents. Archbishop Lefebvre even signed most of…
