The fiery tongues of the Holy Ghost have fallen. The ancient Ember Days are behind us. We lingered in the mystery during the octave for the sake of the transformation of our lives in the Holy Spirit. The 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, feels like the opening of a new liturgical season, Tempus per annum… Time…
“Si comprehendis, non est Deus… If you can grasp it, it’s not God.” — St. Augustine (s. 117.5) That stark declaration by the Doctor of Grace brings us, creeping like Moses, to the cleft in the rock through which we must peer longingly for the ultimate mystery. We believe in the Triune Godhead, and therefore…
There are two senses in which I use the word ‘magic’ to denote what I’m defending.
Of all the liturgical treasures of Holy Roman Catholic Church, perhaps the feast of Pentecost Sunday is the richest, at least in the pre-Conciliar Vetus Ordo. In the Church’s traditional Roman Rite, Pentecost, like Easter, has a Saturday Vigil which includes the blessing of baptismal water. This was and is also the time to baptize…
Our Sunday is ensconced in the novena days after the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord and the mighty day of Pentecost. Church’s liturgical calendar gives us … gave us, at least, until about 1970 an Octave for Pentecost was removed which allows us to contemplate the mystery of the Holy Spirit’s descent from…
For this 5th Sunday after Easter we are still moving through John 16 and the Lord’s Last Supper Discourse as well as the Letter of James. Liturgically, we are very close now to the Ascension of the Lord, on Thursday, when the High Priest, the Risen Savior, entered the heavenly temple where He continuously renews…
I write this shortly before the 4th Sunday of Easter in the Vetus Ordo calendar, which is also the day when our new Pope will celebrate Mass (they call it a “Eucharistic Celebration”) for “the Beginning of the Pontificate of the Bishop of Rome Leo XIV” (18 May 2025). In the older traditional Missal there…
From the onset, I am sure we all feel a sense of anticipation about the new pontificate of Leo XIV. There is anxiety in the waiting and there is joy at the fulfillment. This is a theme of today’s Gospel as well, for Christ uses the image of childbirth in speaking to His Apostles in…
A few minutes by foot from where I presently write in Rome is the Basilica of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill. This was the traditional Roman Station for this Sunday in ancient times. The present church replaced the original built by the Emperor Constatine in the 4th century. It soars with its vast vaults…
In the post-Conciliar calendar this is the “Second Sunday of Easter”. In the 1962 Missale Romanum and in previous editions this Sunday is labelled: Dominica in Albis in Octava Paschae… Sunday in white garments on the Octave of Easter. In traditional parlance today is called “Low Sunday” or sometimes “Thomas Sunday” because of the Gospel…
Happy Easter! My hopeful prayer is that you experience, in this Easter Season, true joy in a personal encounter with the Risen Lord. The Church’s firehose of imagery and traditions and sacred liturgy has been blasting fully at our little drinking cups. Holy Week and the Sacred Triduum can overwhelm as we reach the apex…
