“The mystery of Christ, his Incarnation and Passover, which we celebrate in the Eucharist especially at the Sunday assembly, permeates and transfigures the time of each day, through the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, ‘the divine office.’” -Catechism of the Catholic Church While the Liturgy of the Hours is still an important piece of the official prayer life […]
Introduction In 711 C.E., an army some 10,000 strong, comprised of Arabs and Berbers, crossed the Mediterranean from northern Africa and landed on the Iberian Peninsula at what later became known as Gibraltar. That invasion marked the beginning of a two-decade sweep into Europe by Muslims – later known as Moors – that ended on the north side of the […]
(N.B. – A few years ago, I was involved with an organization called Kairos, which is an international prison ministry with a significant US presence that consists of a national umbrella group and state chapters across the country, including here in Maine. While Kairos offers a number of activities focused on ministering to prisoners – or “residents,” as they’re called […]
Introduction In 711 C.E., an army some 10,000 strong, comprised of Arabs and Berbers, crossed the Mediterranean from northern Africa and landed on the Iberian Peninsula at what later became known as Gibraltar. That invasion marked the beginning of a two-decade sweep into Europe by Muslims – later known as Moors – that ended on the north side of the […]
I live in the greater neighborhood of Lewiston, Maine, where, as all the nation knows, a gunman recently killed 18 people and wounded several others before turning a gun on himself. When I say greater neighborhood I mean the small town in which I live is close enough that we were part of the lockdown order over two days, the […]
During years of occupation within the urban center of Aleppo, militiamen from Jabhat al-Nusra, a jihadist group originally linked to al-Qaeda, and from the Islamic State, took local women for wives as well as kidnapped girls, often belonging to religious minorities, to make them their sex slaves. From these unions, thousands of children were born who – since their fathers […]
Can one be faithful to one’s vocation to the point of dying for it? Can one risk one’s own life for neighbors of another religious confession?
As I’ve noted in earlier entries, in the late 11th century a number of popes were intent upon unifying liturgical practice across Christian Europe. In Spain that effort was opposed by Christians who had been living under Moorish rule for centuries and had developed their own Arab language rite. Loyal to what would later be dubbed the Mozarabic Rite, these […]
In addition to the “El Juicio de Dios”, the battle between two knights, “one a Castilian and the other a Toledan”, which marked the tension over liturgical issues between Rome and the local church in 11th century Spain, there is also a story that two bulls, one named “Roma” and the other “Toledo”, were set to fight, and as with […]
“What better way to disabuse oneself of the contemporary untruth that “life is a battle between good people and evil people” than to heed the heavenly voice proclaiming reassuringly that in a high-stakes debate concerning the most vital issues of existence, “these and those” are equally the words of the living G-d? An intellectual culture founded on the logic and […]
Liturgical conflicts – What’s the most appropriate way to worship God? – have been part of Christian history almost from the beginning. In Song of Toledo, part of the tension driving the plot involves that time and place’s dominant liturgical conflict. In the late 11th century, a number of popes were intent upon unifying liturgical practice across Christian Europe, and […]