Category: Popular Piety
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Degrees of Active Participation in the Liturgy
Unofficial popular liturgies of wandering and veneration are permanent fixtures of Christian urban liturgy.
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“Almost obligatory” Irish contribution to the Sunday of the Word of God
This coming Sunday marks the first time we will observe the Sunday of the Word of God. PrayTell already covered this new observance. Regular readers may also have noticed that I tend to be critical of the state of the liturgy in my native Ireland (for example see here and here). However, for the record, I am just as critical of…
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The Yale ISM Review: On Healing
What is healing about? How does it take place? What roles do prayer, liturgy, and the arts play in the process of healing? These are some of the questions raised and discussed in this issue.
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Devotional Prayer and Community
In early October, I was in Nairobi teaching at a program for contemplative nuns, and afterward I spent a few days with the Benedictine nuns at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery outside the city, in rural Kiambu. As I have written about before, this is still a fairly new community, and it is fascinating…
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Thanksgiving: A Prayer & Litany
God, thank you, for the gift of long friendship.
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November: The Month of All Souls
The coming of God’s Kingdom includes the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of each one of us, and the resurrection of history from all its tears and ruins, from death and misery, destruction and tragedy.
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Are there things we ought not bless?
I was struck by an articleat Catholic News Agency that reported how the Russian Orthodox Church is considering ending their practice of blessing large weapons including nuclear bombs: Last month, a committee on ecclesial law met in Moscow and recommended ending the practice of blessing missiles and warheads, and suggested that priests should instead bless only…
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Liturgical Inculturation in the Amazon: Not So Fast
Inculturation is a difficult process.
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Sacred, Secular and Cell Phones
The fundamental issue in my classroom was a split between profane (how one uses cell phone) and sacred (God-stuff).