The Body in the Grave
The worms, after having consumed all the flesh, devour one another.
The Body on its Death Bed
I thank Thee for not having taken me out of life when I was Thy enemy.
A Gentle Mountain Man: Meeting St. Benedict
The Abbot should “temper all things that the strong may have something to strive after, and the weak may not fall back in dismay.”
Adorning the Soul with Allegorical Gems
This symbolic way of reading the liturgy has deep roots in the Apocalypse of John, and is nothing less than the monastic habit of lectio divina applied to the liturgy.
Mary: His Last Gift to Us
Listen how she says to you from the foot of the Cross, where she is sorrowfully attending the last agonies of her dying Son, “Behold, I am your Mother.”
Eyes Wide Open: A Chestertonian Exhortation
Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead: and Christ shall enlighten thee. –Ephesians v. 14 We Catholics live in a world that is weary of itself and awaits liberation. A new calendar year dawns, and yet the same old thing is true. Indeed, the Apostle writes, Every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain,…
New Years’ Examen for Every Trad
“I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. All extremes except extreme devotion to the Enemy are to be encouraged,” writes C. S. Lewis’s infamous demon Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters. Set in the early 1940s, the book presents the correspondence of…
The Lifting of the Chasuble at the Elevations: Touching the Hem of Christ’s Garment
Above: Detail from a stained glass window, St. Francis of Assisi Chapel, Lincoln, NE All of us who have sufferings to bear and faith in Jesus have a desire to be healed by Him, in some way, at some level. We see in the Gospels that the obvious way in which to go about this…
Seeing Holy Mass with Jesuit Eyes
Above: mosaic of St. John Ogilvie returning to Scotland where he was martyred by heretics in 1615. Photo by Fr. Lawrence, OP. Part I: Seeing Holy Mass with Benedictine Eyes Part II: Seeing Holy Mass with Carmelite Eyes Part III: Seeing Holy Mass with Dominican Eyes Part IV: Seeing Holy Mass with Franciscan Eyes The old saying,…
Seeing Holy Mass with Franciscan Eyes
Above: painting in the museum of San Marco in Florence showing St. Clare and St. Francis in holy conversation. Photo by Fr. Lawrence, OP. Part I: Seeing Holy Mass with Benedictine Eyes Part II: Seeing Holy Mass with Carmelite Eyes Part III: Seeing Holy Mass with Dominican Eyes An exact contemporary of Saint Dominic, Saint…
Seeing Holy Mass with Dominican Eyes
Part I: “Seeing Holy Mass with Benedictine Eyes“ Part II: “Seeing Holy Mass with Carmelite Eyes“ The Dominicans are the towering “lights” of the Church. Think about it: Saint Albert the Great, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Saint Catherine of Siena, among others, were all Dominicans. The intellectual wattage and spiritual luminosity hardly gets brighter than…