Even the Devils Believe

Today is the Commemoration of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For me as an Augustinian, this is sort of a captivating feast, deeply connected to a number of themes that were a part of my oblate formation. There’s this tremendous interplay between the sense that our own sin pierced Jesus’ heart (at Vespers: [...]

Jane has a post up at the Episcopal Cafe about reclaiming the Sabbath, exploring issues like overscheduling and the ways we are more “of the world” than not when it comes to time. It’s a great post, definitely worth a read.
It’s not a silver bullet to solve this problem — far from it — [...]

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been working on an Ordo for the Monastic Diurnal the last few days. The Western Orthodox folks behind Lancelot Andrewes Press put out a publication called “Diurnal Notes” every week which is nice, going into a lot of detail about each Office for each day. However, they follow the [...]

Episcopal Cafe is reporting that the Episcopal Church has been named the Official Denomination of Major League Baseball. Expect to see those little reflective MLB stickers on church signs, bulletins, and Books of Common Prayer starting in the next few months:
“The Baptists and Catholics both made strong bids,” said a baseball official familiar with the [...]

Today is the Annunciation — just eight days after Easter and we are already beginning the story of the Nativity!
Here is a quote on Mary’s joyful assent to the Incarnation, and what that assent means for our own call as Christians, from Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Mary: The Church at the Source.
But Jesus’ [...]

Christ is risen, my brothers and sisters!
I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Vigil, if you went, or are looking forward to tomorrow’s services if not. I had fun making chocolate truffles yesterday and today, which were enjoyed by those who gave up sweets for Lent (and a few who did not [...]

Well, it is the last Friday in Lent — also the transferred Memorial of St Patrick for those misguided and/or Irish souls who are celebrating it today. I am too much of a stickler about the rubrics for that, and I’d wager good money that our bishop is celebrating the feast of Joseph of [...]

Today is the first Monday of March, which Illinoisans will know is Casimir Pulaski Day. Unfortunately, there are no parades going on here in North Carolina, but a friend of mine who got his library science degree from UNC did hold a small (four person) parade down the streets of Chapel Hill on Pulaski [...]

Today is the Feast of the Chair of St Peter — the fact is somewhat obscured by the name used in the latest liturgical books, but it is not traditionally the feast of St Peter’s see in Rome, but rather the Chair of St Peter at Antioch. The traditional feast for the Chair at [...]

Today is, of course, St. Valentine’s Day, but in the new calendar, the commemoration is actually of Sts Cyril and Methodius, missionaries to the Slavic peoples.
In the popular imagination, Cyril is understood to have invented the Cyrillic alphabet, used today to write a variety of languages (not all of them Slavic), including Russian, Bulgarian, and [...]