“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 cut a piece of the roast off before cooking it?” “Because that’s what my mom…
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). So many are the excellent insights in this book that I will undoubtedly return to…
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…
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 off to left or right. He is determined to place himself between the extremes of…
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 place in the liturgy). While the fruits of these reforms are increasingly well documented, what…
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…
One of the two soldiers who had to lead him caused him all possible sufferings. He was forced to make long marches, was exposed to the rays of the sun, to the rains and the cold of the nights. His body, already weakened by several severe illnesses, finally broke down[.] … In the morning Chrysostom…
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 forthcoming broadcast of a TLM accompanied by Frank La Rocca’s Mass of the Americas on…
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 two brothers, no doubt higher in the pecking order of altar boys, made threatening gestures…
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 and the faithful or what they believe (or don’t believe) or how the Mass is…
The noble Latin language that nourished piety for centuries; the serenity of Gregorian plainsong; the splendor of priestly attire; and the visible emphasis on the sacrificial nature of the Mass, wherein the Lord of glory makes His offering upon the Cross present anew for the benefit of the living and the dead — to one…
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