“Mom, why are you cutting a piece of the roast off?” asks a little girl, watching her mother place a roast beef into a roasting pan. “Because that’s what my mom did.” “Grandma,” asks the girl later, “why did you …
Category: Liturgy
Repetition Is the Mother of a Great Many Things
Readers may already know about the delightful book The Gentle Traditionalist: A Catholic Fairy-Tale from Ireland by Roger Buck (Angelico Press, 2015). Buck is back with an equally dashing although more earnest sequel: The Gentle Traditionalist Returns (Angelico Press, 2019). …
The Second Vatican Council Is Now Far Spent
Fr. Dwight Longenecker is a fine writer. No one expresses a certain point of view better than he does. I’m not sure how to characterize it exactly; it might be described as a via-media-at-all-costs, the straight road that veers not …
Bible Vigils, and Why We Don’t Have (or Need) Them
It can be bewildering, when reading about modern liturgical reforms in the Catholic Church, to compare reality (such as the disappearance of Gregorian Chant in the liturgy) with the intention, rationale, or official narrative (Gregorian Chant should have pride of …
How Blurring Distinctions Wrecks the Church and Society
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 …
A Review of the Mass of the Americas
Positive trajectories and luminous developments are a rare commodity in our current ecclesial environment, despite this being part and parcel of the mission of the Church. Therefore, it was with a surprised enthusiasm that I greeted the news of the …
A Stripped Mass Starves Souls
Going to the “new Mass” offered at parishes near me will always be a spiritual struggle, as the norms usually include female altar servers; “extraordinary” Eucharistic ministers; horrible, Protestantized music; and (nearly forced) Communion in the hand. Although this cannot …
Assault on Altar Boys: What Have We Done?
One day, following Mass, a Polish man, in his fifties, shared a childhood story with me. It seems that he and his brother were serving Mass with another boy who, to their frustration, was being deliberately unruly and obstinate. The …
The Failure of Todaying: Abandon the Passé and Recover Tradition
The following letters are based on a real epistolary exchange. Dear Dr. Kwasniewski, It is obvious that things are not at all well with the Catholic Church today. This is true whether we look at the morals of the clergy …
How the New Lectionary Treats (or Doesn’t) the Antichrist
The traditional Catholic lectionary — dating back to the first millennium of Christianity and, since the Middle Ages, included in the contents of the altar missal itself — includes far fewer readings than the revised (postconciliar) lectionary used for the …