One of the neat side-effects of this blog is that many of our readers share the same joy that Webster and I have for the Catholic Church. And then, they share what they have joyfully found with us and with you. This post is a text-book example of this.About a week ago, I posted a poem by St. Gregory the Great called The Glory of These 40 Days to get Lent started off.  Today, I happened over to our Facebook page and noted ... Read more

I don’t know what it is with female saints, but they get to me, Joan of Arc in particular, although I’m reading a biography of Teresa of Avila now, and I’m already hooked. She was one of the first saints to have a devotion to St. Joseph. Priest me no female priests. What other church, what other world religion treats holy women with such high regard?Fact is, though, this post is mostly a pretext to show off this beautiful retablo... Read more

Guest post by Ellen Hutchinson I bounded up the steps into the church last Friday. (Okay, so I didn’t “bound up the steps.” I’m hitting the big 5-0 later this year and I don’t bound up anything anymore. But it sounds so youthful to say that. Frankly, it was 6:50 in the morning and without morning caffeine, I was grateful to God that I was just functional.)  Reaching the top step, I  took my usual two steps to the left and... Read more

I heard a remarkable statistic last night. I can’t back it up; I heard it secondhand; but my source is Cardinal Seàn O’Malley of Boston (left), who celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in honor of the fifth anniversary of the death of Fr. Luigi Giussani. “Don Giuss” was the founder of Communion and Liberation (CL), a movement of which I am a member. Here’s the statistic:In his homily, Cardinal O’Malley said that, today in Spain, traditionally... Read more

On this day we celebrate the feast of St. Polycarp, an Apostolic Father of the Church. He was eighty-six years old when he was captured, arrested, and publicly executed by the Roman authorities on this day in AD 156. He was the Bishop of Smyrna and had been a disciple of St. John, the Apostle.He died a martyr when he was stabbed after an attempt to burn him at the stake failed. This is true Christian martyrdom in the example... Read more

Guest post by Allison  I only learned about Richard Proulx within the past few months, as I delved more into church music through my participation in my parish choir. I wrote last Monday a guest post on how grateful I am that he wrote an arrangement for the Russian Orthodox Beatitudes. At the time, I contemplated devoting an entire blog entry to Mr. Proulx himself. But I’m not a  musicologist, and even my amateur status as a chorister is a... Read more

Guest post by Allison We sang a plea for God’s mercy as an Offertory Hymn at Sunday’s 11 a.m. Mass: Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo; ne in aeternum irascaris nobis. (Spare your people, Lord. 
Be not angry, Lord, with your people forever.)
 Later, at Vespers, three members of the Gregorian Chant Club—my son, my friend Andy, and I—chanted in Latin Audi, Benigne Conditor, which begins with the fourth verse of Parce Domine: Audi, benigne Conditor,
 Nostras preces cum fletibus. In hoc... Read more

I have been on this planet for roughly 49 and a half years. I have been a Christian for roughly 39 and a half of those years and a Catholic Christian for 5 years come the Easter Vigil. So what? So I never knew until a few years ago that February 22 is the Feast Day of the Chair of St. Peter. I also was ignorant of the fact that Catholic tradition states that it was on this day that... Read more

You can blame this article and my good friend (and frequent YIMC commenter) James for this post. Seal and the immortal Stevie Ray Vaughn will have to step aside for a week, to make way for Palestrina, Clemens non Papa, Byrd, and 20th-century composer Eric Whitacre. This is music as it was meant to be, four hundred years ago. I could imagine Warren Jewell tapping his feet to this stuff, if it had a beat.  We begin with the Nunc... Read more