Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who lives and reigns with you... Read more

Sometimes my heart is simply full with the glory, the splendor the majesty, the fullness of the Catholic faith. I can’t express it, but this doorway at Chartres speaks for me. I wish I could place it before you life sized–in the fullness of its position as part of the whole cathedral, but here it is. Christ in glory, supported and surrounded by the gospels, the apostles and prophets and the whole company of heaven. If you could spend one... Read more

Here’s an article from the BBC about abortion. Indian culture prizes boys more than girls, and with expensive dowries to pay Indian couples regard too many baby girls as a disadvantage. With pre natal scanning they are choosing to abort their daughters—simply because they are female. What is interesting about this report is that the BBC (quite rightly) want to portray this as a crime. So they have coined a new word with negative connotations: it is ‘female foeticide’. But... Read more

One of the marks of genius in Lord of the Rings is the way Tolkien builds suspense and the sense of uncertainty, fear and danger as the quest progresses. And yet within the confusion fear and setback there is woven a thread of some deeper meaning. Characters appear to assist or save the hero, but they are never introduced as a deus ex machina plot device. Instead the introduction of a new character is the result of a deeper plot–one... Read more

Read the text of Pope Benedict’s new encyclical here. For non-Catholic readers, a pope’s encyclical is a pastoral letter through which he teaches the faithful, corrects error and guides the church. If you are a non-Catholic reader of this blog, follow the link and read the encyclical. It would be great to have your comments and views. Read more

For Advent and Lent I return to my favorites for reading. Advent: Lord of the Rings. Lent: Divine Comedy. For those who are interested, here beginneth a little series of reflections on the tale. Starting with Fellowship of the Ring, I am struck once again with the simple radiance and goodness of the text. Where does the beauty, truth and goodness come from? There is little to give by way of example, or there is too much to give by... Read more

St Andrew is my favorite apostle. Here’s why: I love the story of him at the feeding of the 5000. The disciples are disturbed by the hungry crowd and ask Jesus to do something about it. He tells them to do something about it. They grumble that there’s not enough money to buy food for all the crowd. Meanwhile Andrew finds this boy with five loaves and two fish, and takes it off to Jesus. Now this just gets me.... Read more

I can remember being rather irritated once to hear an earnest Anglican clergyman refer to ‘the commonwealth of God’ in a sermon. He had clearly changed the language because he thought all this talk of ‘kings and kingdoms’ was not really terribly politically correct. Afterwards I raised the subject with him. He explained that Jesus was bound by the political models of his time, and since emperors and kings were very much part of the ancient Middle East, and the... Read more

Fr Ray has a post with some good links about Mont St Michel. A French traditionalist monastic order now has an outpost there, and the worship is traditional and impressive. Mont St Michel is one of the stops on my upcoming tour of Northern France. Click on the banner above for more information. Read more

There has been some exciting progress forward in the quest for unity between the Catholic and Orthodoxy Churches. The Shriners at Holy Whapping have the story. What interests me about this is the shriners paragraph on authority. The major excitement about this story is that the Eastern Orthodox have agreed that in the early church there was a sense of universal unity within the church, and that the Bishop of Rome had, at least, some sort of primacy. Of course... Read more