I don’t think that I’m wrong to say that we wish both to pray and to feel ourselves to be in prayer but that we blame “distractions” for not allowing us to achieve one or both of these aims. I do believe, however, that we are rather mistaken, in various ways, about what these “distractions” are and what they could mean to us. It might just be that distractions are far from being completely negativ...
Previously in this series: A Theology of Liturgical Evangelization, Part 1
As the Church enters into its yearly observance of Holy Week, liturgical musicians throughout the world anticipate the fruition of months of preparation and prayer. Every year, the liturgies of Holy Week, and especially of the Sacred Paschal Triduum, place a joyous burden on those involved in liturgical music ministry as they lead congregations in singing the mysteries that lie at the heart of the...
Every year in late fall, our local Christian Aid Center has a “Coats for Kids” campaign to help parents outfit their little ones in preparation for the cold of winter. Last year, our Catholic school sponsored a sock drive during the week of St. Nicholas’ feast: a different size each day—from baby booties through toddler, youth, and adult sizes. We learned that, while warm socks are of course one o...
The opening Gospel for Palm Sunday describes the hope that marks Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The disciples sing a hymn welcoming the long hoped for king into the great city: “Blessed is the king who comes/in the name of the Lord./Peace in heaven/and glory in the highest” (Lk 19:38). The reader is returned to the angelic hymn sung by angels at the birth of Jesus. Yet soon, we will find ourselves e...
Over the last several months, there have been a series of blogs, all seeking to establish that the treatment of liturgy following the Second Vatican Council is responsible for the decline in both religious vocations and Catholic practice in late modern society. Some have taken the approach that liturgy after the Council has been "feminized," often leading to a reduction of men entering the priesth...
Few would expect that recovering a traditional Catholic devotion would appeal to the imagination of teenagers. After all, making faith appealing to young people seems to require efforts to excite the senses and incite emotion. While such strategies of evangelization may have their place, praying the Angelus once daily with hundreds of high school students and another 70 college students last summe...
As the title suggests, Gerhard Lohfink’s No Irrelevant Jesus, essentially a collection of short talks on various biblical themes, is concerned with the relevance of Jesus today. However, as more than a century of biblical studies has demonstrated, Jesus’ supposed relevance has been inflected in so many divergent ways that such an enterprise necessarily falls under a cloud of suspicion. The approac...
The opening sequence shows a cartoon man in free fall. Where is he falling to? A past article from The Onion reveals the destination. The headline announces that for the first time since its original construction, Hell is being expanded with a brand new tenth circle, to be called “Corpus Adverticus. ” It is reserved, The Onion reports, for lobbyists, publicists, advertising executives, and “Total ...
Israel understands itself as a nation existing only through God’s extraordinary mercy. Blotted out from the earth because of their sins against the poor, their wars carried out for the sake of prosperity, and their political alliances that led to idolatry, God nonetheless restores them from captivity in Babylon. The God who led Israel out of Egypt through the Red Sea acts once again: “Remember not...
