One could never accuse the Eastern Catholic of being a lazy participant in the liturgy. Throughout the almost two hours of celebration the clergy and laity do enough moving to merit applause from the US Gymnastics team. A Divine Liturgy is also a noisy place. The silences common to the Roman Rite [...]
What Can Brown Do For You?
I’m glad to have the opportunity to explain more about sacramentals, which seem to drive many people around the bend. I hope those who have been driven around the bend by sacramentals and the questions about them are offering up their suffering. It IS LENT.
We’ve had quite the discussion about [...]
Catholics love lists. They’ve inherited this trait from their Jewish forebears. Adam named the animals, and Noah probably used a list to make sure he got them all on the ark.
His descendants made sure they included long lists of geneology in their sacred Scripture. Eventually they graduated into discreet quantities:12 Tribes of Israel, The 10 [...]
Catholics like candles. Lots of candles. We like them next to the altar. We like them next to the ambo (that’s the lectern, guys). We like to light them from big bonfires once a year, and give them to babies we’ve just splashed with water. We particularly like to talk about the significance of the [...]
Protestants have revivals. Catholics, being the more “I prefer experiencing the Spirit kneeling in silence under the stars, thanks” type, have retreats. And oh, do we like them. Ignatian exercises, high school senior retreats, engagement encounter, marriage encounter, Quo Vadis?, Cursillo, TEC, etc….Frankly, the creative Catholic with some cash could spend his [...]
I’m talking about Sanctification–making things holy. Or more accurately, turning things over to God, to be used for his purposes. Catholics do this all the time–usually with the help of a priest. We do it to metals, strings of beads, necklaces–things that for non-Catholics are jewelry, we have blessed, made holy, sanctified, and voila! They’re [...]
Not as in “The Knights who say NI!!!“, but the body part. Catholics like knees. More importantly, Catholics like being on their knees. It’s a sign of respect, humility, and in some rare cases, the opposite of humility, “God, I thank you that I am not like that politician…”.
Men have at times [...]
Since the publication of the Gutenberg Bible using movable type several hundred years ago, Catholics have always seemed on the back end of trends.
Can you name anything that Catholics can claim as their own since, say, the 1600’s? Let’s take a look at the list:
Bible covers. If you are Protestant you can find a cover [...]
Baptism is a ceremony where naked babies are dunked into small pool like fonts then paraded around the church by a priest or deacon so the assembly can see the babies’ naked body parts. This ceremony can be risky as sudden exposure to the cold church air, a plunge into the cold font water, [...]
Give Us A Hand– Catholics Love Relics!
“In Budapest, the procession of the faithful was led by the Holy Right Hand of St. Stephen” was the lead in an article on the basilica there. And no, the Holy Right Hand is not an organization calling itself that. The “Holy Right” is the mummified right hand [...]
