Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Today is the Sunday of Christ the King, or the Sunday Before Advent, depending on which liturgical calendar you're using. (So let's dispense with the term "the liturgical calendar" as if there is only one.) It's the last Sunday of the liturgical year, and as was the case with 2019-20 it's been a long one, …
Continue reading "Don’t Tell People to “Come to the Table” Unless They Really Do–Or Should"
Word of God W/G 8019 (1980) One of the interesting aspects of life in Catholic Charismatic covenant communities was the residential sub-communities. The communities were not in general residentially communal; this mode of life was generally for single people. The sub-community of the Word of God here, the Servants of the Word, is described on …
Continue reading "Word of God/Servants of the Word: Rise Up O Men of God"
“What does the word bourgeois actually mean? … The word designates a spiritual state, a direction of the soul, a peculiar consciousness of being.” “The bourgeois, even when he is a ‘good Catholic’, believes only in this world, in the expedient and the useful; he is incapable of living by faith in another world and refuses to …
Continue reading "The Bourgeois Church of Spectators and the Crisis of Morale in the Priesthood"
For many churches, it's time to think about the Advent/Christmas season. Maybe you've already started. Maybe you're dealing with serious questions, like...should I ask N to light the Advent wreath after he/she almost burned the church down last year? Or perhaps...is there a reason why the congregation mouths the sermons I'm preaching, they are after …
Continue reading "Some Old/New Advent and Christmas Resources"
As fellow swimmer Gavin Ashenden notes: It has been announced that Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, has left Anglicanism and become a Roman Catholic.He was received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, entering the ordinariate on his name day, the feast of St Michael, two weeks ago.This is without doubt one of …
As the title implies, these elevations expound on events after the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, mostly concerning the visit of the Magi. …Continuation on the Mysteries of the Childhood of Jesus Christ
For a small town on Tyneside, Jarrow has always had an outsized impact on our national story. In the seventh and eighth centuries its church and …The town that was murdered
Recently I commented on a post by Dr. Larry Chapp on his back and forth with Ralph Martin on the number of people who will end up in Hell. My response to this was as follows, from Bossuet's Elevations: As far as the number of people who are going to Hell, probably the best response …
Continue reading "Winning the Lost is Better Than Counting Them"
It's one of Bossuet's most famous quotations, and in my opinion his best. It comes from his discussion of the nature of the Magi, some of which is here: The Magi, are they absolute kings or dependent on a greater empire? or are they only great lords, which gave them the name of kings, according …
Continue reading "“I did not take pen in hand to teach you the thoughts of men…”"
This is a “well worn” path for the Christmas season. In addition to that, there are two distinctly Catholic (well, at least one) themes that Bossuet explores: the perpetual virginity of Mary and the poverty of Jesus as an example to his followers. The elevations here are as follows: Elevations on the Birth of Jesus …
Positive Infinity 