Category: Popular Piety
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Brief Book Review: Exploring the Spiritual in Popular Music
“There is sacred power in pop music, and it is worthy of scholarly attention.”
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Pope Francis to Sicilian clerics: Take off your grandmother’s lace.
In an audience with bishops and priests of Sicily on 9 June 2022, Pope Francis told the clerics to stop wearing their “grandmother’s lace”, saying he had “seen the photos”. The Vatican Bollettino – An English language rundown and commentary on CRUX. Living in Palermo I must say that the charge seems a bit overwrought.…
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Gaudete Sunday versus the Third Sunday of Advent
Today the Church celebrates the Third Sunday of Advent. This Sunday has traditionally been given the title Gaudete Sunday. This title comes from the first word of the Entrance Antiphon, which reads: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near. This retains the first word from the older introit,…
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The Advents of our year…
Advent is complicated.
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At the End of the Sky
When we speak about inculturation in the liturgy, we tend to think of the Zaire Rite or the situation in the Amazonian Region. However, we cannot limit discussions on inculturation to other places – it is also necessary in regions where Christianity has been present for a longer time and is more established. Indeed, a…
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Popular Piety: Holy Cards
Popular piety can’t really be programmed. You never know where something like this is going to land.
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May Madness: Popular Piety vs. Doctrinal Feasts
Yesterday, on the Trinity Sunday, I presided a Liturgy of the Eucharist in a parish where I had not been for a number of years. Unusually, there was music at the liturgy – only 1 of the 4 normal Sunday liturgies regularly had music at that parish before the COVID lockdowns. But a cantor presented…
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Open for Prayer
Paul Westermeyer argues for the value of keeping a church “open for prayer” beyond those times when services are being held.
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Better than Winning the Lottery
There is an interesting article and beautiful photo-essay by James Estrin in yesterday’s New York Times about the Rapaport family, from Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York, who are followers of the Kosov sect of Hasidic Judaism. The Rapaports have maintained a family tradition of baking their own matzo (unleavened bread) for Passover. While most families…