Category: Liturgical year
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New and Noteworthy: Heralds of Hope
I’m pleased to draw your attention to an excellent new book by Jennifer R. O’Brien concerning three Advent hymns of the Roman Office: Conditor alme siderum, Verbum supernum prodiens, and Vox clara intonet. Many of our readers will recognize the name of Jenny O’Brien from her insightful contributions to the Sixty Second Sermon series at…
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My 2023 Advent ABC
I am going back to a simple ABC for this liturgical season. This ABC reminds me that Advent comes Before Christmas. It is not that the liturgical season itself – with its hymns, readings, colors and customs – does not voice this, beautifully. Rather, it is the context of our lived lives that gives my…
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July 6: Maria Goretti beyond the “Virgin and Martyr”
Today we remember a 12-year-old Italian girl, Maria Goretti.
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Did you Celebrate the Vigil of Pentecost?
Paschalis Sollemnitatis, the 1988 CDW letter on the celebration of Easter, suggests that we should celebrate a Vigil at Pentecost: Encouragement should be given to the prolonged celebration of Mass in the form of a vigil, whose character is not baptismal as in the Easter Vigil, but is one of urgent prayer, after the example…
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We are living in “The Era of the Holy Spirit”
This era, in which we are now living, is an era where Jesus is no longer with us in bodily form, but in a new way— in the presence of his Spirit. We have been assured the Gift of that Holy Spirit, but still down through the ages the Church never ceases to cry out, “Come,…
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May Day versus Labor Day
Today the General Roman Calendar celebrates St Joseph the Worker as an Optional Memorial. The observance is marked with more or less solemnity in different places. But I have always wondered why it is celebrated on May 1 in the United States. Even though I am currently ministering in Ireland, the land of my birth,…
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Easter Egg in the Desert
We still have a long way to go in the Easter season.
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Listening to the Triduum Liturgies again
Every year when I hear the same central readings of the Triduum I think I’ve heard it all – all the readings and all the angles of approaching those readings. But I haven’t; the words of the proclamations are the same, but as is the case with everyone, I’m different this year, others are…
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Hurried Solemnities
Solemnities and the many other liturgical feasts that fill our calendar are meant to be true celebrations. Our current Missal translation even uses the word “festival” in some of the prayers. However, sometimes the added liturgical elements can provide a challenge to celebration. I remember as a seminarian, that when a solemnity added a third…