Dear Dr. Kwasniewski, I recently listened to your 1 Peter 5 podcast, which was really helpful to me. The part where you take us through the history of the philosophical ideas that were motivating the liturgical reformers at and after …
Category: Liturgy
The Wedding: How to Be a Catholic Music Patron, at Least Once
When we hear the term “music patronage,” we think of the Medicis, the Esterhazys, the Benedict XVI Institute. We don’t think of the middle class. Yet there is a form of patronage that was once so popular and extravagant that …
On Church Music: Sometimes I Miss the Anglican Hymns
Before I became a Catholic, I was a member of the Church of England, in a parish in which we sang Christian hymns with organ accompaniment. There was a choir which sang an anthem at the time of communion. The …
The “Novus Ordo Paradigm” — What It Is and Why It Matters
Earlier today, I was engaged in a discussion on Facebook in which, after saying something about the “Novus Ordo Paradigm,” someone asked me, rather indignantly, what that phrase means. I did my best to explain it, and I’d like to …
The Superiority of Silence
Proponents of the restoration of liturgical sanity speak much about sacred music, and no wonder, given the power of music to transport us heavenward into the mysteries of God — or to stifle our prayer with paltry imitations of secular …
Mass Hysteria: What the Mass Is and What It Is Not
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a profound work of tremendous meaning, mystery, and beauty. For this reason, I think Catholics need to review just what the Mass is, considering that over the last 60 years many people were …
Two Hundred Years of Strangulation: Reviving Form in a Formless Age
Death, Memory, and Oblivion Toward the midpoint of his 1,000-page Aesthetics, Dietrich von Hildebrand describes the death of culture in violent terms: [U]ntil the beginning of the nineteenth century and the triumph of the machine, culture had not yet been …
The Stroke of a Pen Can Destroy Everything
So much has been written about the renaissance underway in many dioceses and parishes across the country. With the increasing number of Tridentine Latin Masses that are offered, the newly ordained priests who bring orthodoxy and the Roman Canon to …
A Brief Tale of ‘Eucharistic Inhospitality’
We hear a lot nowadays about “Eucharistic inhospitality,” a phrase generally abused, but we would do well to reflect on a previous and far more damaging exclusion from the table that has cast a long and still lengthening shadow over …
Only 26% of US Catholics under 40 Believe in the Real Presence, and That’s No Accident
New research from Pew published this month indicates that only 26% of US Catholics under the age of 40 believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. In his book, Index of Leading Catholic Indicators, Kenneth C. Jones …
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