The left is getting nostalgic: The American empire is crumbling. What President Trump is destroying is a product of the postwar years. In the years after the Second World War, America constructed what amounted to a globe-spanning empire, with the active assistance of Western Europe. The immediate justification was to build a military coalition capable …
The Sheep Thief: An Episcopal Story
It's another year and another opportunity to start it with a "monumental post." Unfortunately, as the Anglican Curmudgeon points out, there aren't many good things to report these days. Our political system has gone dangerously stupid, completely in thrall to those who judge the merits of any proposal on who proposed it. The Anglican Communion …
The Wrong Side of the Border for Good Tamales
Even the Mexicans know the truth, if they won't admit it: We bring tamales by the bagful to holidays gatherings, trading them like baseball cards with friends and cousins—I’ll give you some of my TÃa Meme’s pineapple tamales if you hook me up with the potato ones from your Guatemalan sister-in-law. And, once we’ve put …
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Christmas with the Roueché Chorale
A little bit of their recent Christmas program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlxVwnaLc7g The Roueché's are some of my favourite people. They hosted and led our Catholic Charismatic prayer group for many years, which included youth trips to the University of Steubenville. They did so while resisting the siren song of the covenant community. They are great people and …
Ecce Rex Tuus: St. Thomas Aquinas’ Christmas Sermon
For those of us who owe our theological sanity to marching through St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae and Disputed Question on Truth, his Christmas sermon, which encapsulates his method in a very nice form.  Merry Christmas! The Aquinas Institute would like to give our subscribers and supporters a Christmas gift: Aquinas’s Christmas sermon Ecce Rex …
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Sounds of Christmas Past: Robert Shaw's Joy to the World
The first Christmas album I ever owned--and I still have it--is the Robert Shaw Chorale's Joy to the World, released on RCA Camden in 1958.  Recorded right after World War II, it has two distinctives: it's entirely a capella and all the carols are traditional and sacred. "Jeffnham" has done something completely different: he's recorded the …
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Steeleye Span: Gaudete
It's just a tad late in the Advent calendar, but just in time for Christmas: "Gaudete," sung a capella by the British folk/rock group Steeleye Span. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoQ3kbxegHY Getting British rockers (even folk types like Steeleye Span) to sing in Latin was no mean trick, but they did it, and this video furnishes the lyrics. Guaranteed …
David Meece: My Father's Chair
At this time of year I usually think of my mother, who passed at this time of year. But I heard this gem on Jradio Rewind this AM, had to share: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_AfMKuOB80
Why did Gondor not move the Palantir at Minas Ithil before it was captured? or, what Tech People Wonder About When Not Thinking About Tech
Check out this interesting thread at Stack Exchange, one of the premier sites for programmers of all kinds.  There are at least 2,400 other questions on Tolkien topics, and you can check them out, too.
The Wesleyan Advent Hymn the Wesleyan Pentecostals Don't Sing
It's the classic hymn for the Second Sunday in Advent: "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending," done in good Anglo-Catholic style here: https://youtu.be/RPmO75cXXcM?list=PL203B2568FF4CD221 The lyrics were written by Charles Wesley in 1758; more than one tune has been affixed to them, this is my favourite. It's about the Second Coming, which is really what Advent …
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