American Baroque for the Indians of the Americas
"...it had reached unto the realm of Paraguay."
In Illo Tempore: Sunday in the Octave of Christmas
Almighty and eternal God, who in the fullness of time sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, has placed us within the joyful mystery of the Octave of Christmas. In these sacred days time is suspended, as if Mother Church reached out and gently stopped the pendulum. A single day…
In Illo Tempore: 3rd Sunday of Advent “Gaudete”
The Church, as she leads us through Advent, does so with a pedagogy at once sober and exultant, marked by a rhythm that quickens as the great mysteries draw near. From the 1st Sunday, when the Lord is announced as still distant yet surely coming, the liturgy – Mass and Office – presses forward with…
The Two Guadalupes – Mary and the Crescent Moon
Today is the feast day of our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas. She holds particular significance to the Catholic Church in America, as her appearance to St. Juan Diego on Tepeyac hill in Mexico was the first Marian apparition in the New World. She is dearly beloved by Mexican Catholics, and wherever there is a Mexican…
A Guadalupano Wins the Palm of Victory
“Viva Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe!” - final words before his martyrdom.
II Day within the Octave of the Immaculate Conception
"...that this most worshipful Mother should be made bright with the brightness of uncontaminated holiness."
The Immaculate Conception
℣. Grant, Lord, a blessing.Benediction. May God the Father Omnipotent, be to us merciful and clement.℟. Amen. Reading 4From the Sermons of St. Jerome, Priest at Bethlehem.On the AssumptionWho and what was the blessed and glorious Mary, always a Virgin, hath been revealed by God by the message of an Angel, in these words: Hail, thou that art full…
In Illo Tempore: 2nd Sunday of Advent
The Church places before us on the 2nd Sunday of Advent a Gospel passage from Matthew 11:2-10 whose two movements mirror each other like the ends of a well bound book. The first concerns the identity of Christ as sought by the imprisoned Forerunner. The second concerns the identity of the Forerunner as confirmed by…
In Illo Tempore: 1st Sunday of Advent
The paper cup must become more like the swimming pool if it is to receive what is poured out with divine liberality.
The Story of a Conversion: the Extraordinary Encounter of Manuel García Morente
How could a distinguished modern university professor of philosophy believe in God, the Virgin Mary, angels, and saints? Before his conversion, to such a rhetorical question, the Spanish thinker Manuel García Morente (1886–1942) would always respond with the silence of a superior smile. All these Christian teachings and beliefs were, gently, labeled by him as…
Now We Are Sixty-Five
A long, long time agoI can still remember how that music used to make me smileAnd I knew if I had my chanceThat I could make those people danceAnd maybe they’d be happy for a while—Don McLean, “American Pie.” This last November 8, I passed a milestone – I turned 65 years of age. There…