It wasn’t All Saints’ Day yesterday– not for me, in the tradition I follow now. And it’s not All Souls’ Day today, no more than it usually is. Eastern Catholics celebrate All Saints on the first Sunday after Pentecost. We intercede for all souls at a series of Saturdays during Great Lent and Easter. I went to my first All Souls Saturday liturgy earlier this year. Toward the end, the priest chants a petition for God to have mercy on the... Read more
 Halloween is over at last, leaving us all sad until next year. Time to hand out the yearly prizes. For the second year in a row, the prize for Most Elaborate House Decoration goes to my neighbors down the block, who constructed an even more intricate probably-fire-code-violating haunted house than last year’s out of tents, fence posts and old bed sheets. There were strobe lights, there were rubber rats, there was a guy who jumped out and yelled “boo!”... Read more
(Let the reader beware, this is an unpleasant spooky ghost story in the Gothic haunted house tradition, rewritten for suburbia when I was having anxiety. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. All persons attempting to find a moral in it will be ridiculed.) There was no tenant in the last house on Michaelmas Avenue. There was no lease, and certainly no second-story apartment, because there was no second story. At least, there wasn’t... Read more
I would like to thank the couple of generous readers who tipped me in response to the post about being broke and “winning” a lottery ticket last week. In addition to the humorous shopping trip and buying my esoteric chronic fatigue vitamins, Michael was able to pay a few bills. And I would like to awkwardly rattle the tin cup once more for the fall and ask anybody else, in my usual awkward way, that if you like what you read... Read more
It’s All Hallow’s Eve Eve! The most wonderful time of the year! I am so excited for Halloween I think I’ll burst, but that may be be all the candy I’ve already eaten. In any case, we here at Steel Magnificat have compiled some very important last-minute advice to help your family have a safe, comfortable and uniquely Catholic Halloween. First of all, please be advised that NO ONE IS GOING TO GIVE YOUR CHILDREN DRUGS DISGUISED AS TRICK-OR-TREAT CANDY.... Read more
 I am informed that I must not critique a piece of writing written by Professor Anthony Esolen, because he is a “good man and a fellow Christian.” I am also informed that it’s disrespectful to refer to Professor Anthony Esolen as Anthony Esolen, and I certainly mustn’t call him “Tony.” His title is “Doctor,” I’m told in the combox, and the only reason that the good Doctor has not corrected me himself is that I’m a nobody. Very well. Doctor... Read more
 I was having a terrible day. It all started with an advertising circular that came in the mail from a car dealership. “Pull three tabs to see if you’re a winner!” it said. Michael pulled three tabs– and to my great surprise, he found that we were a winner. We’d either won a repo car, twenty-five thousand dollars, “up to $1500,” a big screen television, a $500 Wal Mart gift card, or a cooler. I would have liked any one... Read more
When I was a teenager, in that strange homeschool group where we kept ourselves pure from the big bad world, we were all put into swing-dance lessons, for chastity’s sake. Teenagers were presumed to be thinking about sex all the time; it was of great importance that we be given other things to do, so we wouldn’t have any until we were adults and safely married. We weren’t allowed to go on dates, because dating would lead to sex, but we were allowed... Read more
Anthony Esolen is cross with Father James Martin. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why. Esolen wrote a whole article about how cross he is for the aptly named Crisis magazine, and I still couldn’t tell you why he’s so upset, only that it’s interfered with his ability to write intelligible sentences. The article is called “Open Your Eyes Father Martin.” It’s missing a comma right off the bat, and that’s just a taste of the quality... Read more
A priest by the name of Father Alexander Lucie-Smith, with whom I’m not familiar, recently wrote a list of ten annoying words and phrases he wishes would be banned from Catholic church culture entirely. I agree with some of his choices; if I never see the word “Guideline” again it’ll be too soon. But he missed a lot of good ones, so I came up with my own. “Vulnerability.” You see this one quite often in Catholic women’s devotional pamphlets, or in ladies’... Read more
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