Over the weekend, I was out of town visiting friends in Pennsylvania, and we went to Sunday Mass at the Mater Dei Parish at St. Lawrence Chapel, located at 110 State St. in Harrisburg. This is a chapel of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, and the parish is absolutely beautiful. According to a booklet prepared for…
There is a hierarchy of language. This is true for secular politics and cultural commerce, as well as in terms of religion. In this hierarchy, some languages are higher than others. JRR Tolkien, a philologist at Oxford, was quite aware of this. In his fictional world, which we know through Lord of the Rings, the…
My family and I were spread out in the living room, surrounded by that comfortable cacophony of semi-clutter that makes a house a home, poised to embark on our nightly rosary…when the phone rang. (Of course.) My brother answered in that classic teenaged, almost military style, in which his tone conveyed absolutely nothing to the…
Image: Baptism illumination, circa 13th century. Although few things can match the natural beauty of a fall day in the upper Midwest, I still vividly recall my wife and myself making our way from the cool outside air into the hushed baptistry of our local cathedral, to witness the striking splendor of the Sacrament of…
It is a cool, dark Montana night in early May as we head west from Bozeman toward the Idaho border. Sheets of rain fall intermittently through our drive as we pull our recently acquired utility trailer up and over the passes that divide East from West, Atlantic from Pacific, Montana from Idaho. We are transporting…
The last week has produced an outpouring of reflections on the state of the nation. For many, the election of Donald Trump was unimaginable, and many in the country’s governing classes are now forced to confront the true nature of the divisions within American society. The triumph of Trump made it impossible to deny the…
Last month members of the Latin Mass community of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida were stunned to receive a letter addressed to them by their local ordinary, Bishop Robert Lynch. Following years of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass being offered at two different diocesan parishes, the faithful of both St. Anthony of Padua…
Several recent stories have once again highlighted just how much disdain for tradition, and specifically the Latin Mass, still remains in the Church. Sadly, as many faithful simply seek a more reverent manner in which to worship God in the Holy Mass, they repeatedly encounter clergy who dismiss out of hand the Church’s liturgical patrimony.…
In his most recent post over at New Liturgical Movement, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski discusses the importance of silence within the liturgy, particularly during the Canon of the Mass. In his article “The Silence of the Canon Speaks More Loudly Than Words”, Dr. Kwasniewski notes: “The traditional practice of the priest praying the Canon silently emphasizes…
The Diocese of Pittsburgh announced this week that their Latin Mass Community will become a “personal quasi-parish” on Jan. 1, 2015 and take the name of St. John XXIII. Bishop David Zubik made the decision following a quarter century of steady growth for the thriving community. Bishop Zubik’s explanation of this development was posted on…
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