I began life in the broad mainstream of American Evangelicalism, a tradition quite similar in many respects to the Baptists, the notable differences being the contemporary worship style of my denomination and the greater freedom of theological speculation enjoyed by local communities. Later in life and late in my search for more authentic religion, which…
Today marks the 50th anniversary of ‘Lumen Gentium‘, the Vatican II constitution on the Church. With this brief post I present its highlights, while encouraging you to read the document in its entirety. The First Vatican Council was preparing to give a definition of the Church but was forced to an abrupt end in 1870…
“Every moment of our lives we stand on the brink of eternity.” – Dom Lorenzo Scupolli There are many precious traditions in the Sacred Liturgy that almost entirely disappeared after the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council. We realize that our Liturgy becomes more and more anthropocentric instead of theocentric. This protestanized liturgy is…
In Chesterton’s [easyazon_link asin=”1493508075″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”onep073-20″]Orthodoxy[/easyazon_link], he describes the modern mind as a sort of mental illness, and he notes how modern science approaches those with mental illness: “It does not seek to argue with it like a heresy but simply to snap it like a spell.” To a hypothetical man who thinks himself…
But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil. —Matthew 5:37 There is a certain debate that began at the Second Vatican Council and has never been settled. It is a dispute over whether it is better to use the phrase, “the medicine of mercy” to describe the Church’s approach…
“Thus I make it known to you that from the end of the 19th century and shortly after the middle of the 20th century…the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals… As for the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes the union of Christ with His Church, it will be attacked…
“CANON V. If any one saith, that on account of heresy, or irksome cohabitation, or the affected absence of one of the parties, the bond of matrimony may be dissolved; let him be anathema.” “CANON XII. If any one saith, that matrimonial causes do not belong to ecclesiastical judges; let him be anathema.” – Council…
“And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.” – Jesus (Matthew 19:9) “It’s now a new situation of a marriage. They are living together, they love each other,…
For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon. – Psalms 90:11-13 (Douay Rheims)…
Saint Jerome famously said, “Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” Equally memorable to me was the retort of a friend—a priest of high academic credentials—when I mentioned the tendency among Catholic biblical scholars to dismiss as “proof-texting” the use of Scripture in support of doctrine. I told him of the seminary instructor who…
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 up to God.1 To be specific, the Eucharist is at once a sacrifice of praise…
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