A few weeks ago I was in our little Blessed Sacrament Chapel at school praying and thinking. Since coming to USA I have developed a devotion to St Elizabeth Ann Seton. She was a married person who became a saint, an Anglican who converted, an American who went to Europe Protestant and came back Catholic, a person who returned to work in schools. So I thought, I’ll get a nice icon of St Elizabeth Ann Seton for our school chapel,... Read more

A reader sent this quotation from his grandmother when he asked why she was a Catholic: “All these sacred texts show quite clearly that Jesus Christ must live in you; that you must not live except in Him; that His life must be your life, and your life must be a continuation and expression of His. Also you have no right to live on earth except in order to bear, show forth, sanctify, glorify and cause to live and reign... Read more

Fr Ray has a good short post on St Benedict and chastity. The upshot of it is…pray more. Read more

Here’s Marilyn Monroe with Dame Edith Sitwell. I’m always amused when celebrities from different worlds meet. Did you know T.S.Eliot carried on a correspondence with Groucho Marx? They were mutual fans.  When they met in London they discussed cigars, cats and jokes. Evelyn Waugh was also friends with Edith Sitwell, and stood as godfather at her reception into the Catholic Church. In the congregation was a young Alec (Obi Wan) Guinness, who would be received into the church the same... Read more

Sorry not much blogging this week. School ended and I’ve been sort of coasting. Mind in neutral, a few hours each day at school cleaning my office and desk, then chilling out at the pool. I was tempted to buy a motorcycle this week, justifying it as a necessary extra form of transportation for our family, but reckon the money could be better spent on home improvements and maybe a nice piano for our daughter Madeleine, and maybe a toupee... Read more

OBAMA: Yeah, although I don’t, I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I’m not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I’ve got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others. This is so fashionable. So easy. It’s John Lennon religion. Let’s imagine the world with no heaven or hell, you can have religion, but there will be no dogma. Well, there’s not really... Read more

It was a joy today to celebrate Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine with our eighth graders. You can see the still existing altar rail in this church, so I took the opportunity to instruct them how to kneel at an altar rail to receive communion. All of the Catholics (adults too) had never done this before. On the bus on the way home I asked some of the boys what they thought: “It was just the same... Read more

This is the 200 ft cross erected in 1965 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first Mass said on American soil. The Spanish priest recorded the event in his diary. He came ashore flanked by the soldiers, with banners flying and trumpets playing. From the ships in the bay the cannons were firing a salute. Now that’s what I call a Eucharistic procession. Perhaps we can convince Fr Newman to add a canon salute for special solemnities… I’d never... Read more

Fr. Z says, “Save the Liturgy, Save the World.” An overstatement by a zealous liturgy lover? Perhaps, but on the other hand, ask yourself why there is so little sense of the sacred in our lives. Why do young people not respect their elders? Why the disintegrating social manners? Why the foul language, the commonplace crudeness? Why the lack of courtesy? Why do we not take time for nice family meals? Why the crassness and vulgarity of modern society when... Read more

Geesh, I’m getting it in the ear for suggesting that the Gaffney Peach is ‘bad taste’. C’mon, it is bad taste, just like the hot dog car and those those bottles of holy water from Lourdes shaped like the Blessed Mother with the crown that unscrews. The question is not whether it is bad taste or not, but whether it matters, and whether bad taste is okay. Now I agree with Thomas Traherne who said something like, “Can a man... Read more