Quinquagesima Sunday: A platitude or a way of life?
Without charity we are in darkness, and all our works are profitless.
Without charity we are in darkness, and all our works are profitless.
...be it relief even through a miracle, or be it silence through a suspension of consolations...
Our salvation is not automatic. It must be won, as Paul says with his athletic images, through great effort and suffering when necessary supported by the grace of the Sacrament, especially Baptism and Eucharist, which must never be abused or approached unworthily.
For this 4th Sunday after Epiphany the Vetus Ordo gives us the ultra-dramatic Gospel scene of the Apostles with the Lord in a boat being swamped by the waves during a great storm on the Sea of Galilee. The Lord was asleep. That’s the Gospel for Sunday. But this year I’m writing about the first…
We are looking at the Epistle readings for the Vetus Ordo on Sundays. This week we continue what we prayed last week. I say, “what we prayed,” because the readings themselves are part of a sacrificial offering, the Word being raised to the Father, as the Word made flesh was raised on the Cross, as…
We move liturgically now into the epilogue of the Christmas Cycle, which began with Advent. These Sundays after Epiphany are counted as part of the tempus per annum… time through the year. As such they don’t have a specific character, but function as a transitional stage between the cycles of Christmas and Lent/Easter. There is…
In 1944 the singing group the Mills Brothers recorded You always hurt the one you love The one you shouldn’t hurt at all You always take the sweetest rose And crush it till the petals fall You always break the kindest heart With a hasty word you can’t recall So, if I broke your heart…
Merry Christmas to you all on this Octave of the Nativity of Our Lord. In her wisdom Holy Church knows that we need time to rest within the liturgical celebration of awesome mysteries of our salvation: the Lord’s Birth, His future Sacrifice, and the Divine Motherhood of Mary. We have this pause as the liturgical…
I have been tasked to help you prepare your full, conscious and active participation at Holy Masses on Sundays. This year I am giving primary attention to the first reading in the Vetus Ordo, usually from one of the Letters, or Epistles, in the New Testament. This Sunday presents a happy problem. This year, Christmas…
Some context for our 4th Sunday of Advent and for our Epistle reading are in order. The 4th Sunday of Advent originally did not have a Roman Station church because of the linkage between Ember Saturday and Sunday. Eventually, to bring the Sunday into harmony with other great Sundays it gained a Station at the…
In the movie Bridge of Spies, set in the depths of the Cold War, Tom Hanks’ character is a lawyer assigned to defend an accused and obviously guilty Russian spy. Meeting in prison for the first time, Hanks explains to the spy that everyone wants to send him to the electric chair. The Russian spy…