Fr John Zuhlsdorf, Author at Catholic Herald

Fr John Zuhlsdorf

January 17, 2019

This week we encounter a liturgical unicorn. We shall celebrate the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, and the Second Sunday after Epiphany in the Extraordinary. What makes this Sunday rare is that the collect is the same prayer in both. Although the Council Fathers of Vatican II

Omnium Gatherum

January 10, 2019

After Epiphany, the Church teases forth into liturgical celebrations different manifestations of the Lord’s divinity, including His baptism by John in the Jordan. This is our Sunday celebration in the Ordinary Form, commemorated as well in the Extraordinary. After His baptism, Christ went for 40 days into the desert to be tempted. During that same

Omnium Gatherum

January 03, 2019

This year, we are happy to celebrate Epiphany on a Sunday, which by calendric niceties coincides with real Epiphany, January 6. There is no need to scramble our calendar or to confuse our identity by transferring Epiphany. Traditionally, for Twelfth Night, Epiphany, Holy Church sings an antiphon about not just one manifestation (Greek epipháneia) of

Omnium Gatherum

December 20, 2018

The image’s deceptive simplicity is of an order accomplished only by a master. Brown ink pen strokes. Brown wash. Traces of black lead. The economy is illusory, the effect alluring. Just so is Bartolomé Estebán Murillo’s drawing of the Nativity (c 1665) which I spotted in an otherwise disappointing corridor of frequently changed exhibits at

Omnium Gatherum

December 13, 2018

”Gaudete!” (Rejoice!) is the nickname for this Third Sunday of Advent. I hope you will see lovely rose vestments in your churches. They remind us that our penitential preparation will soon be completed, so as to make our Christmas even brighter. Let’s look at the Collect for the Mass in the Roman Church’s traditional, Extraordinary

Omnium Gatherum

December 06, 2018

This week we celebrate Our Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Conception and the feast of St Lucy, virgin and martyr. Lucy, from the Latin word lux, “light”, is one of our beautiful saints who captured the imagination of countless of our forebears. I might remind you of her naming in the short mnemonic phrase about the penitential

Omnium gatherum

November 29, 2018

“Tuis enim fidelibus, Domine, vita mutatur non tollitur … Truly for Thy faithful, O Lord, life is changed, not taken away.” This phrase from the Preface for the Dead is a fitting way for us to ring out a liturgical year and to bring in the new with the First Sunday of Advent. During November

Omnium gatherum

November 22, 2018

In the Novus Ordo calendar, this Sunday – the last of the liturgical year – is the solemnity of Christ the King. In the traditional calendar we celebrated Christ the King on the last Sunday of October. There is an Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that can

Omnium gatherum

November 15, 2018

This week the traditional liturgical calendar of the Roman Rite, the Extraordinary Form, brings us feast days of saints of various states of life. We will celebrate, along with a Sunday, Saints Gertrude (virgin), Gregory the Thaumaturgus or “Wonder-worker” (bishop and confessor), Elizabeth (widow), Felix of Valois (confessor) and, after the feast of the Presentation

Omnium Gatherum

November 08, 2018

The terrible First World War ended at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918. This Sunday marks the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. The guns weren’t silent for long, but at least they stopped for a while. Eagerly lain down, reluctantly taken up again. Speaking of reluctance, this Remembrance Sunday is also

Omnium gatherum

November 01, 2018

We have arrived at November, the last month of the liturgical year, during which we give special attention to prayer for the dead, the Poor Souls in Purgatory, as well as to meditation on the Four Last Things, Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. The fact is, dear reader, that you and I are going to

Omnium gatherum

October 25, 2018

The Collect for the 30th Ordinary Sunday, also in the 1962 Missale Romanum for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost, was in the ancient Verona Sacramentary and the Gelasian Sacramentally: “Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, da nobis fidei spei et caritatis augmentum, et ut mereamur assequi quod promittis, fac nos amare quod praecipis.” Current ICEL translation (2011): “Almighty

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