Fr John Zuhlsdorf, Author at Catholic Herald

Fr John Zuhlsdorf

March 23, 2017

‘God This week brings us to the feast of the Annunciation on March 25. While it is a Marian moment in the Church’s calendar, it is truly a feast of the Lord. This day celebrates the instant that the Eternal Word took our fallen humanity into an indestructible bond with His divinity and became flesh,

Omnium Gatherum

March 16, 2017

On Sunday March 19, we have a liturgical traffic jam: the Third Sunday of Lent with St Joseph. In the calendars of both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite, a Lenten Sunday is “heavy”: these “outweigh” the Solemnities (OF) and the First Class Feasts (EF). Hence, they are transferred to the next

Omnium Gatherum

March 09, 2017

Each year during the first full week of Lent, Catholics for centuries have observed the Ember Days. There are four sets of these days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) of fasting and abstinence from flesh, corresponding roughly to the changes of seasons. They fall after the First Sunday of Lent, after Pentecost, near the Feast of

Omnium Gatherum

March 02, 2017

Two of the seven female martyrs whose names are in the Roman Canon (First Eucharistic Prayer), Ss Felicity and Perpetua, grace this coming Monday, March 6 in the traditional calendar and March 7 in the newer. In the 3rd century there was widespread corruption and decadence in the ruling Roman aristocracy. Persians were menacing the

Omnium Gatherum

February 23, 2017

March 1 is Ash Wednesday. Lent begins for the Latin Church. The Eastern Churches already begin fasting, abstaining from meat and dairy products, during their Triodion (Pre-Lent). You should by now have planned out your Lenten discipline. Consult what your bishops wrote in 1985: liturgyoffice.org.uk/Resources/Penance/ Abstinence.pdf. They don’t set the bar very high, so consider

Omnium Gatherum

February 16, 2017

This week brings the feast of St Peter Damian (d February 22, 1072 or 1073), Doctor of the Church (February 23 in the traditional calendar, the 21st in the Ordinary Form – so as to make way for the feast of the Cathedra of Peter on the 22nd). Peter Damian was a monk, a cardinal

Omnium Gatherum

February 09, 2017

Your planet has once again swung around to the time of year which since ancient times Catholics have called Pre-Lent. In the traditional calendar of the Roman Rite Sunday is Septuagesima (Latin “seventieth”); we are about 70 days out from Easter. We should start thinking now about our choices for the important yearly Lenten discipline

Omnium Gatherum

February 02, 2017

As I write I am within sight of the Rocky Mountains, preparing to preach at Masses during a parish’s Forty Hours’ Devotion, also called by the Italian Quarant’ore. We will expose the Blessed Sacrament for continuous adoration and have Solemn Masses in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite with processions in honour of the

Omnium Gatherum

January 26, 2017

Forty days out from Christmas we reach the final marker of the Advent to Epiphany cycle. In the traditional calendar, February 2 is the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, the Presentation of the Lord in the newer reckoning. In the cycle of Our Saviour’s earthly life, Mary went to the Temple according

Omnium Gatherum

January 19, 2017

Bernard Malamud, the author of The Natural, a sub-optimal novel converted into a terrific baseball movie, wrote: “Experience makes good people better. We have two lives … the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering brings us toward happiness.” Similarly, Oscar Wilde opined: “The only difference between saints and

Omnium Gatherum

January 12, 2017

Traditionally, when Twelfth Night, Epiphany, rolls around on January 6, Holy Church sings an antiphon about not just one manifestation (Greek: epipháneia) of Our Lord’s divinity, but rather three. First, we know Christ to be divine through the adoration of angels, shepherds and Magi. Next, at His Baptism by John in the Jordan, the Father’s

Omnium Gatherum

January 05, 2017

We always pray that each new year will be a time of great blessings, better than the last. Holy Church understands our need for hope and blessings. She festoons our year’s feasts with special constitutive blessings and sacramentals to help us along. Constitutive blessings establish things or persons as a blessed or consecrated (eg, sacred

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