At least in America, Catholics are known for the level of movement at every Mass. We stand and sit and kneel, back and forth for an hour each week. The use of the body in worship existed from the beginning, since man is both a body and a soul. And, especially from the Incarnation,...
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“My heart is steadfast O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody! Awake my soul! Psalm 108 The endearing power of music, especially sacred music is never more revealing than when we place ourselves outside of a human state and into a divine one. Some months ago I was speaking with...
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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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In one of his insightful analyses of Western Culture the English historian Christopher Dawson made the following observation: This says a lot about our world today and can most especially be seen in the construction of churches today. In the past 50 years there has been a great concern with the functionality or usefulness...
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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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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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“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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Baptism confers the common priesthood because it makes one a member of the Church, the sacrament of God’s presence in the world.5 The common priesthood enables and charges the one baptized with the duty to advance the total reconciliation of man to God, already accomplished on the cross but needing to be applied and...
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