Rhythm has always conveyed steadiness, familiarity. Rhythm is our primordial sense of pattern, our recognition of repeatability. Rhythm expresses personal and cultural attachment to what gives security. Rhythm brings us the hidden wonder of both constancy and expectancy. Like the beating of one’s heart. To break rhythm – say, in dance, in an ensemble, an…
Today—and it has already been thus for some years—the intellectual firepower, not to mention the virtue of basic honesty when it comes to Church history and dogmatic theology, is all on the side of traditional Catholic writers. If one wishes to laugh or groan, one need only visit the blogs Pray, Tell or Where Peter…
Five centuries ago, on December 13, 1521, in Le Grotte, now Grottammare, a charming town on the Adriatic coast in the Marche region, was born the tough pope: Sixtus V, whose original name was Felice Peretti. The great Roman dialect poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791–1863) celebrates him in one of his gracious sonnets: Among all…
“In a filial and obedient spirit I disobey, I refuse, I rebel.” Although spoken by a 13th century English bishop, these bold yet paradoxical words to the pope represent well the tension found in today’s “Recognize and Resist” movement within the Catholic Church. We recognize that Francis is the legitimate pope and that as pope…
Christendom Defends Her Honour In 1531, Christian Europe, thanks to the Roman Catholic Church, had enjoyed over a 1000 years of Christendom. Ever since St. Constantine the Great – “Equal to the Apostles” – Catholic Christianity had been triumphing gloriously. In countless souls and societies of Christendom, Mary had crushed the serpent and Christ the…
Two weeks remain until the Nativity of Jesus Christ. In these final moments, the veil between Heaven and Earth becomes very thin. We stand at the precipice of the triumphal Incarnation of the Logos. For twelve months we have toiled and struggled through this Valley of Tears, but from the fiat of one Woman, we now edge…
Consider where we have been so far in Advent. On the first Sunday of Advent, we heard in the texts of Holy Mass that the Lord was still distant, but that He was coming. Then the pace picked up. In the Second Sunday’s Gospel, Christ explained that John the Baptist’s followers should tell the great…
From The Three Ages of the Interior Life Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. — The Question of the One Thing Necessary at the Present Time What we have just said is true at all times; but the question of the interior life is being more sharply raised today than in several periods less troubled than ours.…
Bioethically, we no longer know men from women; legally, we no longer know when life starts or stops; morally, we no longer know right from wrong or virtue from vice. Too often, our personal lives are squalid, our political affairs are corrupt, and our pastoral leadership is reprobate. The cause? The world, the flesh, the…
Writing about the construction of Notre Dame de Paris, two very different experts said: When it was decided to rebuild a cathedral, the bishop, the canons, rich townsfolk, and neighbouring landowners made the first offerings. The king was next approached, and usually gave a large sum. Collections were then made throughout the city and surrounding…
On Dec 8, 1854, to the great rejoicing of the Holy Catholic Church, His Holiness Pope Bl. Pius IX proclaimed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In Ineffabilis Deus, the Supreme Pontiff taught, This sublime and singular privilege of the Blessed Virgin, together with her most excellent innocence, purity, holiness and freedom from every stain of sin, as…
