Benedictus Deus

There is a recent thread on the FishEaters forum about the pros and cons of Catholic “ghettos” thought the term seems to be used to cover any kind of Catholic community. I was happy to see that most responded positively to the idea of living in a Catholic community. There are some of [...]

Through the Distributist Review I found this interesting article.  I would like to highlight this part:
To the outsider, the Amish lifestyle can appear to be one of deprivation and austerity, prompting us to ask: What’s kept the culture alive?  And can it continue?  The answer may lie in the culture’s central, guiding value.  Called gelassenheit, [...]

There is an excellent article I stumbled on about the relationship between culture, how we mark time, and the liturgy.  It was written back 1992.  The author, Thomas Storck, does a great job of saying what I am always trying to say here.  I highly recommend the whole article, but there are couple parts I [...]

The November prediction was not so accurate.  Here is my note on the last Ember Friday:
November prediction -  Cloudy early, mostly sunny by late morning, warm but seasonable.
The actual weather around here was mostly rainy and unseasonably warm, especially at night.  Most nights the temperature did not drop below the mid forties.  The average low [...]

A few months ago we took a family vacation to Colonial Williamsburg. In preparation for the trip we got a few CDs of colonial music. One of them has a song about smoking tobacco. The lyrics describe various analogies about smoking. For example, “it shows our decay, we are made out [...]

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out The Lion and the Cardinal to see Daniel Mitsui’s drawing of the crucifixion. Very impressive, and he includes an explanation of the various parts. Of course there is lots of other good stuff to check out over there too.

I was really going to post this on time, but due to illness and other factors it got put on the back burner.  I was going to past a quote from the Liturgical Year, but I don’t have it handy so I’ll paraphrase.  Abbot Gueranger said that due to general ignorance and lapsed practice amongst [...]

Not long ago my wife and I were discussing ethnic roots and the modern disconnect from them.  We are both quite a mix, but I tend to focus on my Italian, German, and Irish heritage.  My wife however is such a mix that just considers her self American and that’s that.  So the question came [...]

Here is my wood stove from a few mornings ago. There is something very satisfying about using the heat you are already generating for your home, to also cook. On the stove is my tea pot, acting as a humidifier, my percolating coffee maker, and a pot of squash that will be used [...]

There is an excellent article on culture, and its relation to technology and virtue by Professor Patrick Deenen at “The New Atlantis.” Mr. Deenen hits some of the issues I lamented a year ago when I wrote the post Bland Culture. Particularly the part about how modern culture has wiped out colorful local cultures and [...]