How did Saint Anne, not mentioned in the Bible, become one of the most important saints of the Church’s second millennium? The answer has to do with the shifting role of the laity since the high Middle Ages and the central pivot point of the Incarnation in this shift. Let me begin with a personal anecdote.
Articles under Liturgy
Solemn Vespers for the Easter Octave
[The following is from the program notes from our last celebration of Solemn Vespers.]
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was more than a new event within the old, tired world, laboring under sin and death. In fact, it was the end of that world and the inauguration of a new creation. All who are baptized into Christ belong to this new creation, and our lives “are hidden with Christ in God.” As the first creation was made in six days, with God resting on the seventh, the new creation required a new day, the ‘eighth day’, a day outside of the closed cycle of the broken world.
Form Focuses and Releases Energy
Today is Debbie Reynolds’s birthday. She is the most energetic woman I’ve ever seen on screen. What strikes me whenever I’ve watched her dance is this: her mastery of technique is what makes her energy so intense and infectious. Her poise and carriage are never tense nor slack; she is an icon of the (apparently) effortless channeling of the potential into the kinetic.
The Virgin Martyrs
The feast days of the four Virgin Martyrs of the early Roman church frame the celebration of Christmas. St. Cecilia starts us off on November 22, and she is followed by the feast of St. Lucy (December 13), St. Agnes (January 21), and St. Agatha (February 5). On each of these feast, the hymn at the morning office of Lauds uses this text for the fourth verse:
Solemn Vespers Monday night!
[The following are the program notes for First Vespers of the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, to be celebrated Monday, December 31 at 5:15 p.m. We hope that many of you can join us and ring in the new year with this beautiful celebration!]
Understanding Christ’s Kingship
The concept of kingship, considered throughout history and in multiple cultural contexts, varies quite a bit. Contemporary Americans tend to equate kings with tyrannical figures wielding huge amounts of arbitrary governmental power, whether it be the power of taxation exercised unhappily by George III at the expense of the Colonies, or the power of complete policy control as brandished by the Sun King, Louis XIV (“I am the state,” “L’état, c’est moi,” was his memorable way of expressing it).
Reflections on Wisdom
[The following is from the program notes from our last celebration of Solemn Vespers.]
“Because of her pureness [Wisdom] pervades and penetrates all things. For she is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entry into her. For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God [Wisdom 7: 24-26].”
Celebrating our 30th Anniversary!
[The following is from the program notes from our last celebration of Solemn Vespers.]
With immense gratitude to Almighty God and to the Mother of God, Mary Most Holy, I offer some reflections on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of our founding.
Radical Witness and Saint Lawrence
Monks in the modern world are daily confronted with incongruities. We dress in tunics and scapulars that were the workaday clothing of sixth-century peasants. We pray the Psalms, composed some three thousand years ago in a language that does not translate into contemporary idioms very well. Many of our customs date from the early Middle Ages (suddenly a controversial era!), presupposing a worldview that is unfathomable to many of our neighbors in Chicago.
The Typology of Job
[The following is from the program notes from our last celebration of Solemn Vespers.]
Saint Gregory the Great is one of the few late Western Fathers whose works were also highly esteemed in the Christian East. There, he is known as “Dialogos,” the writers of the great Dialogues. One-quarter of this famous collection of the lives of saints is given over to Saint Benedict, which means that Gregory holds a special place in Benedictine monasticism.