January 2009
60 posts
A monastic day
Something is always out of balance in our lives here in the world. We ought to have a good spiritual life (full of sacraments, prayer, devotion), an intellectual life (good books, intelligent conversation, reflection), a recreational life (play, the creation of beauty, physical exercise), a cultural life (music, painting, literature), a physical life (sleep, food), and a social life (the...
December 2008
67 posts
2008 Patriarchal Nativity Encyclical
Dear to God:
Christmas is the great event that reconciles Heaven and Earth.
In this event God has joined us, and has become the catalyst that unifies, and that eliminates all polarities between God and the world, God and man.
The Birth of Christ represents the living example that God has claimed His creation fully. This is so because man is the symbol of creation, and God’s progenitor on earth....
Heresy of the week: Apokatastasis →
The Divine Liturgy of Saint James →
What's in your Bible?
Anthropologist of the sacred: Dame Mary Douglas →
“In 1970 she published another book that was to make a splash far beyond the narrow academic world. This was Natural Symbols (1970), in a memorable chapter of which, called ‘The Bog Irish’ (among whom she counted her ancestors), she pointed out that the dropping of the prohibition for Catholics of eating meat on Fridays took away the cohesion of the group. Worse, ‘people...
Christmas
All after pleasures as I rid one day, My horse and I, both tir’d, bodie and minde, With full crie of affections, quite astray, I took up in the next inne I could finde.
There when I came, whom found I but my deare, My dearest Lord, expecting till the grief Of pleasure brought me to Him, readie there To be all passengers’ most sweet relief.
O Thou, whose glorious yet contracted light, Wrapt in...
The ultimate purpose of human existence
“The Word became flesh”: in this is the ultimate joy of the Christian faith. In this is the fullness of Revelation. The Same Incarnate Lord is both perfect God and perfect man. The full significance and the ultimate purpose of human existence is revealed and realized in and through the Incarnation. He came down from Heaven to redeem the earth, to unite man with God for ever. “And became man.” The...
… But, every Christmas, somewhere in the media, some dim clever-clever journalist looks through last year’s files and then writes a piece about how different bits of Christendom have celebrated Christmas at different times; about how there is no real evidence for the date; about how it is really just a Christianisation of the old pagan Roman festival of the Unconquered Sun. And there...
“May each Christmas, as it comes, find us more and more like Him, who as at this...”
– John Henry Newman
Crash course in "temple theology"
Overview
Temple theology traces the roots of Christian theology back into the first Temple, destroyed by the cultural revolution in the time of King Josiah at the end of the seventh century BCE. Refugees from the purges settled in Egypt and Arabia.
From widely scattered surviving fragments, it is possible to reconstruct the world view of the first Christians, and to restore to their original...
“St Mary is our pattern of Faith, both in the reception and in the study of...”
– John Henry Cardinal Newman
Exspectatio Partus B.V.M. →
Father Mark, OSB (Vultus Christi) on the old Roman Rite Feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Dec. 18).
On religion and the church today →
Anonymous contributions from two friends of the blog A Conservative Site for Peace.
Western Rite Orthodox Wall Calendar 2009 →
Containing Sundays, Feast Days, Fasts and other Observances of the Christian Year, According to the Use of the Western Rite Vicariate General of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Features beautiful medieval Western Christian statuary and reliefs, with quotes from the Fathers of the Church. (Designed by Benjamin J. Andersen for Lancelot Andrewes Press)
A Catechism on the Sacrament of Holy Baptism →
By the Rev. Canon Chandler Holder Jones, SSC
“Father Alexander [Schmemann] used to say to incoming students: ‘You will...”
– Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen)
The Cause for the Canonisation of John Henry... →
Was St Augustine Good for the Jews? →
Time Magazine interview with Paula Fredriksen, a Boston University religion professor and self-proclaimed “Augustinista,” author of Augustine and the Jews.
The Advent Wreath
Most Catholic churches nowadays place an Advent Wreath in their sanctuaries. This practice has been questioned by some Catholics. Some contend that this is a Protestant custom, not found in Catholic churches before Vatican II. Is this a matter warranting concern?
There are contrasting stories as to how the Advent Wreath came to be. Some maintain that it evolved from ancient Germanic and...
Paths and Polemics →
A review of three examples of convert literature on the Roman Primacy, by William J. Tighe. Touchstone Magazine, September 2000.
Modern religiosity
… Most ideas of modern religiosity are substantially the same. For the Protestant believer, the less enchanted the universe is, the more Christian it is. He has long ago taken to heart the idea that the devil is the lord of this world, and considers everything he sees accordingly. Matter is corrupt and cannot contain anything divine, so the word “idolatry” is always on his lips.
For the...
The Orations of the Vatican II Missal: Policies... →
Dr Lauren Pristas. Communio 30 (Winter 2003).
“The essence of the spiritual ideal of monasticism is within Christianity from...”
– Fr Georges Florovsky (source)
The forgotten 'Easternness' of Christianity →
Leo Allatius (1586-1669) →
B16 on Original Sin: Between East and West →
Akathist to Our Lady of Guadalupe
Kontakion 1
To Thee, our great and constant Intercessor before the Throne of Almighty God, do we, Thy children, offer this hymn of praise, glorifying Thy wondrous Image revealed to Thy humble servant, Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac, as we sing of Thy enduring heavenly Protection of all who keep festival, joyfully exclaiming with arms uplifted: Rejoice, O Lady from Heaven, Virgin-Mother clothed...
R.I.P. Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ (1918-2008) →
Psalm 18: The Bridegroom from his Chamber →