"Lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand." Photo from WikiCommons. This is an expanded and updated version of an article originally published at LifeSiteNews in December 2022, which was more categorical in places than this updated version. We all know that Advent is a period of hope and preparation which begins four …
Continue reading The Roman Liturgy – how it reveals an under-appreciated aspect of Advent
"The body of the episcopate can never perish or err, but each bishop can fall into error and even separate from his brothers through schism or heresy." Image: Bishops at Vatican II, Wiki Commons As we already noted, the author J.M.A. Vacant was the initial director of the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique and was a seminary professor. …
"Is a solemn definition by a Pope or a Council necessary to make a doctrine heretical?" Image: The Immaculate Conception, Wiki Commons As we already noted, the author J.M.A. Vacant was the initial director of the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique and was a seminary professor. This short work was awarded the prize for the theological competition in La …
"What are the signs that identify a doctrine taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium?" This is the first half of Vacant's long Chapter IV, which considers again the different ways in which the Church's ordinary magisterium teaches us, and the obligations corresponding to these ways. As we already noted, the author J.M.A. Vacant …
"The Judge is near, even at the very gate. Life is passing away, as a dream, and as a flower." Image: Cain leads Abel to his Death - Tissot. The incident is mentioned elsewhere in The Great Canon. Wiki Commons. St Andrew of Crete died in the eighth century in Damascus. He became a monk …
Continue reading The Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete – Prayers of Repentance for Lent
"It is absurd, and a detestable shame, that we should suffer those traditions to be changed which we have received from the fathers of old." The Decretals, cited by St Thomas AquinasSumma Theologica, Ia-IIae, Q. 97 A. 2Photo by Thays Orrico on Unsplash In this piece...– What is tradition?– Can abandoned or forbidden practices be …
Continue reading What does Michael Lofton mean by “tradition”?
"His is an omnipotence which can swathe itself in infirmity and can become the captive of its own creatures." Image: Adoration of the Magi, Edward Burne Jones, (Wikipedia Commons: source) Editor's Introduction Today is the great feast of the Epiphany. The word, as many of us know, means an appearance or manifestation. The feast is …
Continue reading Power and Humility made Manifest in Christ: An Epiphany Sermon from Cardinal Newman
"Ye play with your palms and crowns beneath the very altar." There are many moments of beauty and pathos in the Church's year. But few are so equally filled with both bitterness and glory as the feast of the Holy Innocents. It is very noticeable that Christ's coming to the world is marked with blood …
"O my God, holiness becometh Thy House, and yet Thou dost make Thy abode in my breast." I. The Mass 1. I ADORE Thee, O my Lord God, with the most profound awe for thy passion and crucifixion, in sacrifice for our sins. Thou didst suffer incommunicable sufferings in Thy sinless soul. Thou wast exposed in Thy …
"Ye play with your palms and crowns beneath the very altar." There are many moments of beauty and pathos in the Church's year. But, in my opinion, few are so equally filled with both bitterness and glory as the feast of the Holy Innocents. It is very noticeable that Christ's coming to the world is …