Waiting with Our Lady for the coming of Our Saviour, we will meditate each day of Advent on a different aspect of the circumstances of His birth, the moment of The Incarnation amongst us. Reflection: ARRIVAL AT BETHLEHEM GATE On arriving at the gate of the city, share Mary’s joy at reaching her destination. Pray [...]
Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.—Romans xiii 11. Awake—again the Gospel-trump is blown— From year to year it swells with louder tone, From year to year the signs of wrath Are gathering round the Judge’s path, Strange words fulfilled, and mighty [...]
Depart from me, Lord. Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. Why have you come to me? Why have you called me? You know me. You’ve searched me . . . And so you already know there’s nothing that you will find in me. I have nothing to offer you. Only weakness. Weakness and [...]
We come now to a feast of Ends and Beginnings! This Sunday is the last Sunday in the cycle of the Christian year, which ends with the feast of Christ the King, and the following Sunday we begin our journey through time to eternity once more, with the first Sunday of Advent. We might expect [...]
As a literary scholar, C.S. Lewis’s principal concern in his "Reflections on the Psalms" is to vindicate the Psalms as poetry and, therefore, vehicles of beauty, delight, and even (as he boldly puts it) “mirth.” These are things which, Lewis says, modern humanity needs badly. One of the great constants in my life has been [...]
The poet’s career doesn’t end once he dies. The soldier’s career arguably does. The poet-soldier, then, has died physically, but what remains of him is his art. Both Edward Thomas and Francis Ledwidge managed to create something that transcended their persons and lasted long after being killed in war. When we think of English poetry, [...]
At this season of the year, on the 1st and 2nd of November, the Church ‘keeps the feast’ two days running, with a pair of feasts; All Saints and All Souls, each of which begins with that wonderfully Biblical and inclusive little word All. I remember the effect that little word had on me, coming [...]
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore — While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “ ’Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door — Only [...]
White founts falling in the courts of the sun, And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard, It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips, For the inmost [...]
Poetry offers a unique antidote to the superficiality that dominates American culture. Poetry calls us back to tradition and calls us out of the shallows into the deeper water of human experience. It draws us toward transcendence. It is tempting to decry our age as the worst of times. Anyone who has studied history, however, [...]
When one dares to enter the country of other men’s souls in quest of understanding about the nature of virtue, he enters a dangerous world. When one dares to enter the country of other men’s souls in quest of understanding about the nature of virtue, he enters a dangerous world, especially when that world is [...]
Poetry, often called the thinking man's meme, has faded from popular culture. Still, Catholics could greatly benefit from exploring the works of poets who lived heroic, faith-filled lives. Were one to conduct a survey of modern-day Americans, taken at random, it is likely that not one in a hundred would have heard of the poet Richard [...]
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of the Marian dogmas and mysteries of the rosary that is a mystery in more than a devotional sense. Non-Catholic Christians will declare that it was only invented by the Catholic Church in the twentieth century. To be sure, the dogma was defined by Pope Pius [...]
Continuing my series of sonnets ‘Sounding the Seasons’ of the Church’s year, here is a sonnet for the feast of the Transfiguration when we remember how the disciples, even before they went to Jerusalem to face his trials with him, had a glimpse of Christ in his true glory. The Transfiguration is usually celebrated on [...]