The Easter Season (50 days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost) is also the season of mystagogy, the period of post-baptismal catechesis for the neophytes. The neophytes, formerly the elect, formerly the catechumens, formerly the inquirers—their title changes as they move through the liturgical process—received the Sacraments of Initiation at the Easter Vigil. They were...
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As I’ve studied the English Reformation, I’ve read often about the state of religious practice before Henry VIII broke away from the Pope and established himself as Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England. As Eric Ives points out in his recent study, The Reformation Experience, 16th century Catholics in England demonstrated...
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The ordained priest shares in Christ’s artisan-work of re-crafting the divine image in man in a unique way. By being an alter Christus, he makes Christ, the Head and Bridegroom of the Church, present to the Church herself. He is an icon of Christ’s presence to the very icon of Christ’s presence in the world. He supports...
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Father Schrader speaks about the singular privledge that we, as creatures, have to consume consummate beauty Himself in the Holy Eucharist.
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Have you ever been to a Mass where the priest invited people (perhaps children) from the congregation to stand with him behind the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer? I have. Now, I’m not going to spend a lot of time discussing the illiceity of this practice (see Notitiae 17 (1981), 61). Rather, I would...
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This June is a very solemn month. There are four Solemnities on the Liturgical Calendar: Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Birth of St. John the Baptist. The first three are movable feasts, scheduled according to the date of Easter each year: Trinity Sunday...
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“As often as the sacrifice of the cross by which ‘Christ our Pasch is sacrificed’ (1 Cor. 5:7) is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 1, 3, p. 324). Recent changes to the Mass language underscore the importance of the laity both...
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Catholics are not accustomed to tracing the roots of our theology and practice back to the Jewish tradition, this in spite of the fact that the Gospel texts take great pains to show Jesus’ lineage and teaching is deeply grounded in the promises to the people of Israel. Both Matthew and Luke trace the...
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The Catholic Church in England before the Reformation used some adaptations of the Latin or Roman Rite called the Sarum Use. These adaptations had developed at Salisbury Cathedral and took their name from the Latin for Salisbury. During Holy Week, these Sarum Use adaptations of the ritual demonstrated the great devotion of the...
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Pope John XXIII said he called the Council, “to renew faith, to reflect on her unity, to promote the sanctification of her members, the diffusion of divine truth, and the consolidation of her structures.” He said, “The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is … that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine...
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