I will never forget what it was like to watch the Lord of the Rings films for the first time, when I was eleven or so. I had always devoured books, but the story of Frodo and the ring was in another class than anything I had yet experienced in my young life. I remember…
For years, a friend of mine wrestled with his vocation. Should I be a priest? Should I get married? Which one, Lord, are you calling me to? One roadblock stood in his way. Surprisingly, celibacy was not holding him back; rather, it was the Church’s teaching on the superiority of celibacy over marriage. Like my…
Epistle: Philippians 4:4-7 Gospel: John 1:19-28 Incline Thine ear to our prayers we beseech Thee, O Lord; and enlighten the darkness of our minds by the grace of Thy visitation. – From the Collect for the Third Sunday of Advent This Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, is “Gaudete Sunday.” Taking its name from the…
In these times of “politically correct” religious and moral bewilderment, in which Christmas carols are purged of Christian references, when they are not replaced with other songs, times in which Nativity scenes are rejected in the name of a misunderstood religious neutrality and a misrepresented secularity, the call, found in the pope’s recent apostolic letter…
Read the Gospels. You will see a constant theme of our Lord’s preaching: the Four Last Things. Last week, we covered death. Now we take up the subject of judgment. The Imitation: To many the saying, “Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me,” seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear…
Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II Stephen Bullivant Oxford University Press 336 pages $32.95 hardback, $24.99 e-book If you want to start a heated debate in Catholic circles, just state an opinion about the Second Vatican Council’s impact on attrition rates in the modern Church. While many implicate Vatican II…
Epistle: Proverbs 8:22-35 Gospel: Luke 1:26-28 O God, Who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, prepared a worthy dwelling for Your Son, and Who, by Your Son’s death, foreseen by You, preserved her from all taint, grant, we beseech You, through her intercession, that we too may come to You unstained by sin. –…
Already the first great jewel threaded onto the strands of the new liturgical year is upon us: the glorious Feast of the Immaculate Conception. This year, December 8 falls on a Sunday. Yet this feast is so important that it supersedes the Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent in the traditional calendar. Dom Prosper…
There is perhaps no truth today more shunned, suppressed, and vehemently ignored than the reality of death. The modern man is consumed with indulging his slavery to his passions, proclaiming himself free, and absolutely banishing the thought that he will die. He has invented words to shun even the mention of death: “macabre,” “morbid.” Yet…
Author and talk show host Dennis Prager accurately observes that there is no greater concept in the first five books of the Bible than that of “distinction.” More specifically, it is the clear separation God makes between certain things: God and man, animal and human, life and death, sacred and profane, good and evil, male…
At some time, we have all encountered a sedevacantist — if not in person, at least online. I won’t bore you with the theology of the sedevacantism except to say they hold that a heretic cannot be pope, with the most common strain affirming that Pius XII was the last legitimate pope (although I did…
