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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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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A great deal has been said about paragraph #14 in the Second Vatican Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium regarding the “full, conscious, and active participation of the faithful at the sacred liturgy. Some in the Church have used the text to justify a great many innovations in the liturgy – some legitimate, others not –...
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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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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 “Maundy” of Maundy Thursday comes from the Mandatum, the new commandment Jesus gave his Apostles after washing their feet at the Last Supper–love one another as I have loved you. The ceremonial re-enactment of Jesus’ humility was not part of the parish celebration of Holy Thursday in Pre-Reformation England. It was performed...
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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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Sacrifice is beautiful. We intuitively recognize its love, nobility, and mystery. Our Lord’s priestly sacrifice on the cross is, being the exemplar and source of value for all sacrifice, also the most beautiful. St Thomas Aquinas described the beautiful as “that which, being seen, pleases,”1 which forces us to ask the question: can sacrifice be beautiful...
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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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Now there are several plotlines to follow in the story of Catholics as they went underground during the reign of Elizabeth I, all of them connected to the celebration of the Mass (and the other sacraments). The first plotline concerns Catholic rebellion against the Elizabethan religious settlement—and government reaction to that rebellion once it...
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