One of the chief arguments for the traditional Christian practice of celebrating the Eucharist ad orientem — the priest and people together facing the same direction, toward the liturgical “east” of the apse — is that the Mass is a sacrifice offered …
Category: Theology
“You are Peter”: Getting Papal Authority Straight
There’s a scene in Evelyn Waugh’s masterpiece novel, Brideshead Revisited, that I often recall, to my amusement. Father Mowbray is giving instructions in the Catholic faith to a lapsed Protestant named Rex Mottram. Mister Mottram isn’t really sincere in his …
No Other Gods: Three Questions That Can Help You Sift Pagan Chaff from Christian Grain
Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem “From shadows and images into truth”1 Various translations are possible, since imagines can be translated: ideas, appearances, phantasms, likenesses, simulacra, symbols, etc. For Newman, the darkness from which he had emerged could be described, …