Part 2 of my wife’s reflections on the challenges of Catholic parish community life and hospitality. Part 1 can be found here. There are Catholics among us who go to Mass, worship our Good Lord, relish His presence in the Eucharist, are uplifted by being among so many faith-filled people, but then return home feeling … Continue reading
Category Archives: Catholicism
If We Have the Eucharist, Why Are We All So Hungry?
This is Part 1 of a multi-part guest series by my wife Mrs. Tom, which she felt inspired to write regarding the challenges in Catholic parish community life and hospitality. Some of us experienced the good of shared family or community life as children, and maybe some people are blessed to still have that in … Continue reading
Embracing the Good in the Corpse Chapel
Steve Skojec’s most recent Substack, The Corpse Chapel, continues his wrestling with his traditionalist Catholic past and his current agnostic seeking. Steve brings his usual, eloquently raw honesty to the matter, and I recommend it as usual for some real food for thought. There was a particular sentence in Steve’s reflection that could be easily … Continue reading
The Tragicomedy of the Trads
Another day, another new trad book: Notice Kwasniewski’s hype-words: “hugely important” “absolute dynamite““like nothing that has been since Vatican II. NOTHING.“ See, this is perhaps the most tragicomical feature of Tradism as a movement. It consistently exhibits a belief that its next big overhyped book will be LIKE NONE OTHER… when it will be quite … Continue reading
The Divine Office Hymnal Now Available from GIA!
Great news! The new collaborative publication between GIA, the USCCB and ICEL, titled “The Divine Office Hymnal,” is now available for orders on GIA’s website. This is the fruit of many years’ work by ICEL in leading the translation into fresh, accurate, metrically matching, contemporary but poetic English of all 294 Office Hymns in the … Continue reading
A Simple Daily Office for Traditional Latin Catholic Laypeople
One of the hallmarks of the Liturgical Movement in the early- to mid-20th century was the impetus to open up the treasures of the Sacred Liturgy of the Catholic Church to the entire people of God. To this end, a slew of vernacular publications of liturgical texts, not only bilingual hand missals but also simplified … Continue reading
The Daily Office of the North American Ordinariate: A Note of Appreciation
Divine Worship: Daily Office’s Commonwealth Edition published by Catholic Truth Society in the UK is understandably esteemed by most as the crown jewel of the Ordinariates’ divine offices. The reputation of its underdog cousin, the North American Edition published by Newman House Press in New Jersey, was marred from the very beginning by delays in … Continue reading
A thought on Trent and Justification
I was talking to a Protestant friend recently about how he was “still on the hunt for a Protestant liturgical church,” when I responded, half-tongue-in-cheek, that he should perhaps give contemporary Catholicism and the current Roman rite a fair shake and may find the “liturgical Protestantism” he’s looking for. He said, “NEVER!” — because the … Continue reading
Liturgy of the Hours, Second Edition: Long-Awaited Updates
I have written several posts in the past about the ongoing revision of the Liturgy of the Hours’ American edition, giving props to USCCB and ICEL for their excellent work, reasonable timing and transparency about progress. Although this continental revision of the translation will not solve some fundamental issues with the current Roman office that … Continue reading
On Trads, Orthodoxy and “Disunity”
I have noticed an increasingly recurring trope in recent self-styled Roman Catholic “Trad” material of late. It is a tellingly defensive dig against the Orthodox Churches, and a disclaimer that “of course” the trad author or speaker in question is not advocating an “Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology,” which is supposedly showing its bankruptcy, because certain local … Continue reading