In 2008, Monsignor Peter Fleetwood, a consulter for the Pontifical Council for Culture, spoke about “the blight of and iconoclastic Puritan streak in North and North West Europe which has inevitably had an effect on all forms of art, including church architecture.” He has also noted that, during the utilitarian trends of the Soviet Empire, the Eastern Churches, both Orthodox and Catholic, “seem to have successfully stood their ground, with an amazing talent for beautifying the...
Not since Pope St. Pius X (1903-14) has a pontiff befriended sacred music more passionately than Benedict XVI. At the Counter-Reformation, musical excesses were corrected. In the nineteenth century, concerns about church music that was pietistic, devotional, and non-liturgical came and went with minimal reform. Since Vatican II, the issue of sacred music has mushroomed into bitter debates, a fact well-known to Benedict. This essay summarizes his catechesis on sacred music in his own...
From primitive times, fasting has been practiced for three basic reasons: the magical, the ethical and the religious. Apparently, the results brought about by fasting and by the use of drugs are similar: both release or produce mysterious powers. Unlike drugs however, fasting sharpens a person’s intellect and strengthens the will. Fasting can increase concentration and mind-expansion. Saying no to drugs or to any addiction is to be liberated from that addiction.
A...
In the year 300, you could be put to death if you were a Christian. In 400, you could be put to death if you weren’t. During those first three centuries of persecution, heroic women came to hold pride of place in the Christian community.
Seven women – in addition to the Mother of God – are named in the Roman Canon I: Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, and Anastasia. It was for their faith that they suffered ghoulish physical torture and martyrdom. In the Eastern part...
Athanasius cut a curious figure, a dwarf-like man with hooked nose, short beard, and fiery temper. Born in A.D. 295 near the Egyptian Nitrian desert far away from the Diocletian persecution in Rome, he was well-educated in the classics and theology. Bishop of Alexandria for many years, he became the Church’s dominant theologian of the fourth century. This Doctor of the Church died in 373, and his feast day is May 2nd.
The Arian Heresy
How is Jesus fully God and fully man? This was a...
The Christian writers of the first and second centuries paint a picture of the Early Church’s encounters with a hostile culture. The issues were pressing: outright persecution, instructing catechumens, protecting the newly-baptized, celebrating the liturgy, organizing and expanding missionary activity.
Approach of the Apologists
The writers, mostly apologists, had experienced Christianity in different ways, but they were united in only one vision of Christ and the Christian life. They...
Last Spring, New York City’s Yeshiva University invited a group of bishops to a dialogue with Jewish scholars. One of the bishops, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M., Cap. of Philadelphia, made three observations about his visit there.
Yeshiva Lessons
1. Passion for the Torah. The students “didn’t merely study it; they consumed it. Or maybe it would be better to say that God’s Word consumed them.” They were in love with the Word of God.
2. The power of Scripture to...
Would we Catholics feel at ease in the company of the Early Christians? Would they feel at ease in our company? For the moment, let us put aside these questions.
A few weeks ago on Christmas Day, approximately 1,700 signatures were collected by an online group petitioning the White House to target the Catholic Church as a “hate group” for its teaching on marriage. The petition aims for 25,000 signatures by January 24th. This news recalls observations of American historians who describe...
The New Year is the perfect place to start anew. Periodically, if not daily, organizations evaluate themselves to determine if their mission and goals are being realized. Accepting the status quo is out of the question. Streamlined and creative strategies are sought to sharpen their public images.
The same principle holds true for us whether or not we hold to religious views. We want to live more healthy, reflective and meaningful lives.
“Know Thyself”
The dictum, “know thyself,”...
We face the New Year without having yet caught our breath from the momentous events of the last. The underlying thought of every day, even if unexpressed, is the question of happiness. What will make me happy this year? The pursuit of happiness underlies all our decisions St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that happiness is the thing itself which we desire to attain. It includes the attainment and the use or enjoyment of the thing desired. Happiness is joy in possessing integrity at the core...
