Eyewitness Accounts of Liturgical Life Before and After the Council
In his second memoir, Traddy Daddy: Memories and Thoughts of the Father of a Catholic Family, Joseph Bevan regales us again, as he did before in Two Families, with story after story of English life...
View ArticleComplete Coetus XI Documentation on the New Lectionary Now Published in English
The Lectionary for Mass – drawn up by Group XI of the Consilium, the “super-committee” charged with carrying out Sacrosanctum Concilium – is often held up as one of the greatest achievements of the...
View ArticleThe Seven Joys of the Virgin Mary
For a fairly brief period, today was kept by the Franciscans as the feast of the Seven Joys of the Virgin Mary. As an expression of the Seraphic Order’s devotional life, it corresponds to the feast of...
View ArticleThe Numinous in the Roman Rite, Part II
In our last post, we described the importance of the numinous for Catholic worship. Here, we describe how that principle is instantiated in the traditional Roman Rite. The Numinous in the 1962 Missal...
View ArticleDurandus on the Beheading of St John the Baptist
The Church celebrates the feast of the beheading of blessed John because he died for the truth, but not as solemnly as the feast of his birth, because (when he died) he went down to hell (i.e, the...
View ArticleAn Admission Against Interest: “We Still Do Not Know How to Celebrate the...
At his Wednesday audience this week, the Holy Father Pope Leo XIV delivered the last in a series of eight discourses on Sacrosanctum Concilium, the most recent ecumenical council’s Constitution on the...
View ArticleSaint “Added-On”
Since well before the middle of the sixth century, August 30th has been the feast of two Roman martyrs of the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian (ca. 303), a priest named Felix, and a man who after...
View ArticleA Few Notes on Readings from Job
In the Roman Divine Office, the Matins readings for the first two weeks of September are taken from the book of Job. The system of Scriptural readings assigned to the Office goes back to the 6th...
View ArticleOn Sacred Art, part 2: What Governs the Style of the Traditions
How the anthropology of the Theology of the Body accounts for the iconographic, Gothic, and Baroque styles, and why the art of Leonardo and Michelangelo is not among them.This is the second of two...
View ArticleThe Legend of St Giles
On the Roman calendar, today is the feast of the abbot Aegidius, known as Giles in English, one of the most popular Saints of the Middle Ages. All hagiographical scholars recognize that the traditional...
View ArticleTLM Pilgrimages in France and the Holy Land with Dr. Kwasniewski
Over the years, I’ve noticed a happy development, and it seems to me to confirm the general trend pointed out by countless observers, namely, that where Catholicism still remains, it is becoming more...
View ArticleThe Feast of Pope St Pius X
From a discourse of His Holiness Pope Pius XII, on the canonization of Pope St Pius X. Sanctity, which was the guide and inspiration of the undertakings of Pius X, shines forth even more clearly in...
View ArticleMusic from the Book of Job
When Job heard the words of the messengers, he suffered it patiently, and said: If we have received good from the hand of the Lord, why should we not receive evil? In all these things, Job did not sin...
View ArticleThe Agnus Dei
Lost in Translation #167 To resume “Our Lost in Translation” series on the Ordinary of the Mass, we turn to the Agnus Dei. After the Commingling, the priest recites (while the choir chants) the...
View ArticleVideos of Reenacted Medieval English Liturgies
A friend of mine brought to my attention some interesting videos recently posted on the YouTube channel of a man named Sebastian Nelson. In September of 2011, the School of Music at Bangor University...
View ArticleThe Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Incline Thy ear, o Lord, and hear me; save Thy servant, O my God, who hopeth in Thee; have mercy on me, o Lord, for to Thee have I cried to Thee all the day. Ps. 85 Give joy to the soul of thy servant,...
View ArticleThe Vigil of the Nativity of the Virgin
The origin of the feast of the Virgin Mary’s Nativity is a matter of speculation, and the reason for the choice of date is unknown. It was celebrated at Constantinople by the 530s, when St Romanus the...
View ArticleNew England Sacred Music Workshop, October 15-17
At St Benedict Abbey, Still River, MA I am happy to promote the New England Sacred Music Workshop 2026, offered in conjunction with St Benedict Abbey. The workshop focuses on both chant and polyphony,...
View ArticleLiturgical Notes on the Nativity of the Virgin Mary
Advent is considered the start of the Roman Rite’s liturgical year as a matter of logic and convention, but is not formally designated as such in the liturgy itself. In the Byzantine Rite, on the...
View ArticleThe Audible Recitation of the Secret Priestly Prayers of the Divine Liturgy...
St. Basil the Great praying during the Holy Anaphora (source)A guest article by Pan. Papadimitriou, PhD“Having shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret”, Mat. 6:5–6“While the Secret prayer is...
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