Years ago just before Christmas, I heard a beloved Seminary Professor make a provocative and powerful statement. He said, “The Christmas Octave is when the Church decides to pour blood into our egg nog.” That image has stuck in my…
Christmas, even in the neo-pagan anti-culture of the Western World, like a gargantuan, forgotten cenotaph covered in overgrowth, remains the premier annual feast to most post-Christians, for whom the ancient liturgical year has become a distant memory. It is intrinsically…
Today the Church reaches Mid-Lent, traditionally called “Laetare Sunday”, from the Introit of the Mass, Rejoice Jerusalem/Laetare Jerusalem. Having started the season of Lent largely reflecting on Biblical themes of temptation, penance, repentance, fasting, almsgiving and prayer, our attention will turn…
February is the cruelest month…(to me, anyway) I am a huge fan of poetry, and arguably my favorite 20th century poet is the great T.S. Eliot. This time of year, when the sun gets warmer and the days longer here…