The Anchoress
Some browse-ables for your reading pleasure:
I have always loved this image from Ariel Agemian, and indeed all of the illustrations in my lovely old Imitation of Christ tend to catch me and hold me in rapt contemplation. New translations come and go, but I still love this old edition, put out by the Confraternity of the Precious Blood the best.
What brought that etching to mind was Lisa Mladinich’s passionate exposition on the urgent importance of the Holy Eucharist in our lives and our formation:
. . . we all have moments when we feel ill-equipped to save souls, like below-average seminary students exiled to the hinterlands. And most of us truly are unremarkable in the eyes of the world; more frustrated, over-burdened, and exhausted than inspiring. But Jesus invites us to eat a seemingly ordinary meal of bread and wine that, in the hands of our beloved priests, becomes the power needed to radically empower our lives. When we partake of Him in this intimate and transformative way in the Holy Eucharist, we embrace the possibility of ordinary souls doing extraordinary things. Suddenly, there is life in us (Jn. 6:53). And therein lies a path of genuine glory.
With Palm Sunday before us, as we “brace for the week that was”, Marcia Morrissey brings an adult’s understanding to the images of suffering and sorrow that terrified her and fascinated her as a child.
Remembering Human Dignity: Something of the Glory of God Shines on Your Face — I love this piece; it is a true and thorough look at the rightness of our Church’s teaching on the Dignity of the Human Person. And we need to remember it when we read things like this
Love’s “Little Way”: a lovely and insightful look at the small acts of complete love that most of us are called to. Shades of St. Therese!
No surprise then, that Jesus was a carpenter: Wood of the Ark, wood of the manger, wood of the cross – God Works Wonders with Wood
Chant Cafe: What We Think We Know is Wrong.
A director of music at a Catholic parish, obviously of long experience, sent me a list he has been keeping of things that people believe that are not so.
1. It is possible to fully understand the Mass.
1a. Having Mass entirely in the vernacular facilitates this complete comprehension.
1b. The more Latin we use, the less we can comprehend the Mass, unless we know Latin.2. Mass is really about the words.
3. We must determine the popular musical taste of young people and incorporate these styles into the Mass, or young people will eventually leave the church.
3a. Young people overwhelmingly prefer contemporary popular music in church.
3b. Likewise, young children are only capable of grasping music written specifically for them.
3c. Family Masses, primarily addressed to children, facilitate catechesis. Such Masses do not, however, demonstrate to adults that religion is primarily for children.
Read it all, it’s something different
A Hollywood Adjustment: Are religious themes and influences becoming more prominent in recent films?
Sherry Antonetti: The Very Necessariness of Everyone
Concord Pastor: The Average Catholic is not who you think She is
Fr. Dwight Longenecker: America the Literal
A Great Story: “I Don’t Know What Possessed Me”
Inside Catholic: Prohibition is UnCatholic
Day of Recollection: Orthodoxy is not a club
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In