Even the Devils Believe

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today leaving a political rally in Rawalpindi. The people of Pakistan could use all our prayers now as the country is plunged into mourning and violence just a few days before elections.
If I can be forgiven for making a philosophical point related to this terrible news — [...]

Christ is born! Glorify him!

I hope you are all blessed richly by the knowledge that the Logos of God became incarnate today for the salvation of the whole created universe.
We are going to the cathedral of my wife’s bishop for midnight Christ Mass tonight. Our tree is up and everything feels ready. Uncharacteristically, I’m [...]

God is with us — he is now here, a coming in flesh celebrated in two days’ time on the Feast of the Incarnation. The last of the great O-antiphons occurs today, leaving us prepared for the coming of the Messiah. As with the rest of this series, the Oxford OPs sing the [...]

Tomorrow is the last of the O-antiphons for those following a variant of the Roman calendar. Tomorrow is the last day for Anglicans, too, but they started a day earlier and have preserved the antiphon “O virgo virginum”. I’m not sure if any contemporary uses of the Roman rite (Benedictines?) have preserved this eighth [...]

Just a few days left before Christmas, which means just a few more antiphons to go before Christmas Eve. Today’s, O Oriens, contains one of my favorite titles for Jesus — sol iustitiæ, sun of righteousness. This is the first day I’ve noticed the bar after “Veni”, placing tremendous emphasis on that one [...]

We have a few foster cats in our apartment during Christmas break because a friend of Sue’s is headed home to the Midwest for the holidays. I thought I’d share a few photos of them — things have been kind of crazy as a result of their presence, but we’re having fun. (Mostly!)
Here are [...]

Today’s O-antiphon, O Clavis David, gives us my favorite verse of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Singing “O come, O key of David, come and open wide our heavenly home” as a kid was an important part of feeling the coming of Christmas, connecting all the hoopla going on around me to what was [...]

Today’s O-antiphon is “O Root of Jesse”, sung below by the Dominicans of Blackfriars. They just posted this today — it is the last day of the English Province’s gathering. Also check out bls’ post.

O Root of Jesse, which standest for an ensign of the people, at whom kings shall shut their mouths, [...]

Sue and I had a holiday party last Friday when finals ended, and we tried out a mulled wine recipe I hadn’t heard of before — the smoking bishop. It turns up in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which I hadn’t remembered. Here is a page about the drink, based in part on this [...]

Lee has posted a great Christian Century article about faith and political engagement, by a professor of religion at Smith. It is short, but punchy.
Some conservative wags like to say that liberalism is a mental disease. But the mental disease isn’t liberalism and it isn’t conservatism, it’s utopianism—and the antidote to utopianism isn’t apathy, [...]