We lose things during Lent. We are being pruned through sacred liturgical worship. Holy Church experiences liturgical death before the feast of the Resurrection. Music and flowers go first on Ash Wednesday, along with the word Alleluia. Today, statues and images are draped in purple. That is why today is sometimes called Repus Sunday, from…
Our forebears felt keenly the proximity of the upcoming feast because they took penance far more seriously than we do today.
On this Sunday we move from defense against the Enemy to attack on the Enemy.
Jesus used with Peter the same language He used on the Devil at the end of the Temptations in the wilderness.
The Roman Station for this 1st Sunday of Lent is Rome’s Cathedral, the Basilic of St. John Lateran, referred to as the “Mother Church of the City and of the World”. It’s full title is the Papal Archbasilica Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the…
Our coming Sunday is already Septuagesima. Let’s do the technical stuff first. Septuagesima slides around from year to year because Easter slides around because the Moon is a bit of a calendrical coquette, or as Juliet calls her, “inconstant”. Easter is early this year, 31 March. We celebrate Easter in the Western Churches on the…
Traditionalist Schmaltz, however, has nothing like the strength it had in my youth.
St. Philip Neri (+1595) was praying one night, as he often did, in the Catacombs of St. Sebastian. A ball of light came down from above and entered his mouth. He was so overwhelmed by the love of God that he cried out, “Enough, Lord! I cannot take anymore” and passed out. When he awoke,…
Many of these individuals are not even Catholics; some were quite out of sympathy with the Church.
Before you go to Mass on Sunday, look up the chapter for that Sunday and ruminate on it.
This penultimate Sunday of the Liturgical Year brings us a pericope from Paul’s 1st Letter to the Thessalonians 1:2-10. Paul’s Letter could be one of his earliest, along with Galatians. Some scholars think it could be the earliest section of the New Testament. Thessalonica is in modern Greece. Paul visited there and converted both pagans…
