Benedictus Deus

Although the Feast of the Sacred Heart was not made universal until 1765, there were much earlier saints who observed this special devotion. Most notably the Benedictine nun St. Gertrude the Great. The Catholic Encyclopedia says the “characteristic of St. Gertrude’s piety is her devotion to the Sacred Heart”.  In honor of what would [...]

My good friend John R. has taken the initiative to establish a Divine Office association called the Confraternity of Saint Benedict.  In a nut shell this is an association for both lay and clerical members with the aim of fostering use of the traditional Office both at home in and in public services (especially Vespers [...]

It has been some time since I harped on praying for the dead. Of course the occasion for this is the celebration of All Souls day yesterday. As I have written before, praying for the dead has become almost totally neglected today. I can’t imagine that in the entire history of the [...]

Recently I felt as though I was getting off track in the spiritual life, and wanted to do something forceful to get back on track. I couldn’t really go on a retreat, so I made up a little program for myself to follow for one week. The primary goals were increased prayer, and [...]

Prayers taken from the Gregorian Sacramentary:
O God, the enlightener of all nations, give thy people to enjoy perpetual peace, and infuse into our hearts that shining light which thou didst enkindle in the minds of the three Magi.
Almighty and eternal God, the light of faithful souls, who hast consecrated this solemnity by the first-fruits of [...]

Thank you to Mike Foley for providing these prayer intentions in a comment on the previous post:
Call to Prayer and Fasting
This year, the Autumn Ember days are on September 24, 26, and 27. They follow the Feast of the Holy Cross (Sept. [...]

Today through Wednesday is Rogationtide again already.  As I mentioned before these are days of penance.  Fasting and abstinence were customary in many countries in former times.  Regarding the conflict between penitential days and Eastertide, Abbot Gueranger notes that even Mary and the apostles were sorrowful at the thought of their Jesus leaving them (and [...]

Recently, Jeffrey Tucker posted at NLM about chanting the grace before meals. Another blog picked up on it and derided the idea as pretentious and arrogant. Mr. Tucker made a reasonable response in the comments, but the blog author wouldn’t hear it, and mischaracterized traditionalists, in a way that is common among people [...]

Advice for making a daily Lenten meditation from Abbot Gueranger:
During Lent, the following should be the leading subjects of our meditations: the justice of God which we have provoked by our sins, and His infinite holiness which sin offends; conversion of heart, the necessity of breaking with dangerous occasions, and of doing penance for our [...]

To some extent Thanksgiving grew out of the old European custom of celebrating Martinmas.  It was standard practice to go to mass in the morning before the feasting and festivities began.  Even though Thanksgiving is no longer tied to Martinmas (or any mass), it would still be a great idea to go to morning mass [...]