Back in 2019, I had the opportunity to attend for the first time the Pre-55 Holy Triduum, and afterwards published an article here about the experience. This year, in 2021, came my first opportunity to assist at the Pre-55 Pentecost Vigil—and, once again, the experience was a triumphant vindication of the wisdom and beauty of…
As some of you know, I have a personal blog, as it were, on the newsletter platform Substack. It’s where I go to air out my more personal and non-religious musings about the search for meaning, the pursuit of purpose, and other assorted interesting things about our sojourn in this universe. It’s a place, in…
“Now I suggest such a peasantry of volunteers primarily as a nucleus, but I think it will be a nucleus of attraction. I think it will stand up not only as a rock but as a magnet . . . . It will become important when a number of other things can no longer be…
“Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, it is the day of Christians, it is our day.” -St. Jerome The leisure suits, felt banners, and clown Masses prevalent in the 1970s are not the sort of seedbed one envisions for the start of a 45-year liturgical tradition of chanting Sunday Vespers in Latin with exposition…
I was deeply moved by the article that appeared at this site, entitled “Seminarian: ‘Is There Any Reason Why I Should Remain Catholic?’” What follows is my affirmative reply. I’m under no illusions that my answer will be comprehensive or convincing to everyone, but what it has going for it is the sincerity of a…
“Unless there is a Good Friday in your life, there can be no Easter Sunday.” -Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen One could easily agree that 2020, and even the beginning of 2021, has been “Good Friday” for many Catholics. As the sun begins to shine once more, we look hopefully to the future for our…
This morning, I was very sad to learn of the death of Chuck Uhlenkott, the father of one of my best friends of the past 26 years and a singular figure in my own life. He passed away on May 13th. The funeral is today. In early 1997, the year I started college, I had…
One of the most remarkable, versatile, and intriguing modern writers is Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, social critic, and satirist, whose voluminous works are a colorful patchwork of books published with serious titles under his own name and books published with fanciful or teasing titles under a bewildering variety of pseudonyms (including Judge William, Constantine…
Editor’s note: we received this submission from an anonymous seminarian, and have chosen to run it as such. It is the cry — and the challenge — of a child to a neglectful father: “Why weren’t you there to protect me when that was your job?” It’s the cry — and the challenge — of…
Proverbs tells us: “What a joy it is to find just the right word for the right occasion” (15:23). So it is with the word imposturous, which ideally captures the essence of the deceit which characterizes what currently masquerades as social ethics. If an impostor is someone who pretends to be someone else to deceive…
Each day brings further stories of injustice, especially for those pursuing Godly faithfulness and truth. It feels we are bombarded with gut-wrenching examples that defy normality, commonsense, and sanity, especially for a country that uses “In God We Trust” as its motto — though certainly, the citizens of other nations are feeling this as well. So…
