I like to sing the simple tone Marian antiphons with my daughter, who hasn’t had any Latin yet. I sing first the original Latin chant, and then I sing it again, putting English words to the chant melody. That is, if I have an English version of the chant! Maria A. Trapp’s book Around the…
Start getting those Lent meals planned! Here’s a late 19th-century gem from England that I found scanned and uploaded one day: Cookery book for fasting and abstinence days. Eel Pie for the very brave, and Macaroni Pie (baked Mac’n’Cheese) for the rest of us! Although the variety of cookery books at present in circulation is…
Happy New Year–today’s the perfect day to talk about calendars, of course! If you’ve got a young family, you won’t want to miss the wonderful work done by Michaela Harrison, a Catholic wife and mother living near–and very inspired by!–Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma. Even if you don’t have children at home, your own faith…
Any study of late medieval religion must begin with the liturgy, for within that great cycle of fast and festival, of ritual observance and symbolic gesture, lay Christians found the paradigms and the stories which shaped their perception of the world and their place in it….In the liturgy and the sacramental celebrations which were its…
A riddle for you, with six parts, one answer: What is Catholic worship? What is Gregorian Chant? What do “professional Catholics”–priests, monks, nuns–do all day? What converted and settled Catholic Europe? How do we work to “order our days aright,” optimally patterning our personal praying and working each day? What is the basis, bedrock, seedbed,…
The fundamental fact about the liturgical year is that it is a sanctification of time. Certain key events in the history of salvation, and certain key elements of faith, have become attached to certain dates of the calendar like gems on a bracelet. This bracelet is like a magnificent rosary. We cannot handle it without…
There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants. –Outline of Sanity, G. K. Chesterton
If you’re ready to prepare for the beautiful liturgical season of Christmastide by learning traditional chants for this time, you’re in the right place. It’s never to early to begin practicing these chants, keeping a good Advent season the meanwhile! (Speaking of which–for Advent chants, please go here.) The chants for Christmas clearly inspired the…
Well, this post started out in my enthusiastic mind as a great idea, and then I did the research for it. I knew the “St. Andrew Novena” or “Christmas Novena” was coming up, so I thought I would share all about it with my dear readers. And…it’s much stranger than I thought. The St. Andrew…
Blessed Feast of All Saints! Earth is so near to Heaven today that the one thought which fills all hearts is happiness. –Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year What a glorious day this is! From sunrise to sundown will be remembering and celebrating the eternal joy that our big brothers and sisters, the saints, are enjoying in…
St. Catherine Catholic Culture Center 