Epistle: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10 Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11 O God, who dost purify Thy Church by the yearly observance of forty days; grant to Thy household that what we strive to obtain from Thee by self denial, we may secure by good works. – From the Collect for the First Sunday in Lent As literature, the…
Our world has never needed a father more than now. Our shepherds are not merely absent to their spiritual children, but also often part of the pack of wolves devouring souls. Many young people are tragically confused about their sexual identity. Parents have no idea how to be sacrificial spouses. Fortunately, we have no need…
Some years back, my mother gave me an unusual Christmas present: a book entitled The Greek Fathers: Their Lives and Writings by the late Fr. Adrian Fortescue. I say unusual, because I don’t think she had ever given me a book as a gift before, nor did I have any idea why she gave me this…
It’s on special days like today that I notice most sharply the vast difference between the LEX ORANDI of the old and the new liturgies. I have prepared a chart comparing the blessing of ashes in the Tridentine rite with its parallel in the Novus Ordo. (Click Image to Enlarge. Or download PDF version here.)…
Two hundred fifty years ago, on February 26, 1770, “following a gangrene that developed in one foot,” the one who at the end of his career was called the “first violin-player in Europe” and “master of the nations” died in Padua (P. Petrobelli, Giuseppe Tartini — Le fonti biografiche, Universal Edition 1968, p. 13-14): Italian…
This past Sunday, I had the privilege of attending a conference talk on Heaven by Father Isaac Mary Relyea, part of a Lenten mission series on the Four Last Things hosted by The Fatima Center. In the car on the way there, I joked about how my fiancé and I needed Father Isaac to give…
Editor’s note: This article comes to us from an anonymous Catholic with the Twitter handle @FergusFSU. The religion of God, the Christian faith, is not for wimps. As Christ Himself said, the path to salvation is narrow (Matt. 7:14), and only he who endures to the end will be saved (Matt. 24:13). We must (not…
As we discussed in our first and second parts of this series, Christ as New Adam and Mary as New Eve formed a new creation. It canceled the contest of power from Original Sin and founded the Church on humility within God’s sacred order. The Protestant revolt renewed the contest of power by removing the…
Looking through my files, I see that I must have been suffering delusions of grandeur shortly before we came out here to Oregon in 2008. Must have been, since I asked to be put on the agenda to speak at the next meeting of the parish council at a beautiful parish in the far western…
For better or worse, there are palpable effects to any grave life decision. Ideas, words, omissions, and actions can have fateful consequences. Such a grave decision is being made by many in the Catholic Church. The choice is to believe that Benedict, a man who undeniably still lives in the Vatican, clad in ominous white,…
In this episode, Steve Skojec talks with Catholic attorney Joseph Dion about their shared experiences with the Legionaries of Christ & Regnum Christi, an investigation into their illicit activities in the early 2000s that may have contributed to the disciplinary actions taken against their disgraced founder, Marcial Maciel, in 2006, & the plight of those…
