Crusading, Homiletics, Mysticism and More on USC!

I have not had a lot of time to write lately; a lot of things going on in my personal and professional life, but I have been doing a tremendous amount of reading and know that this will bear fruit in the near future as I get some more time to devote to writing, which is my favorite past time.

But, for now, here are some recent articles on the Unam Sanctam Catholicam website:

Books of the Liturgical Choir: The latest installation in our series on liturgical music and Gregorian Chant, examining the history and content of the Books of the Liturgical Choir of the Roman Rite.

Crusaders and Conversion: Historical inquiry into the question of whether, and to what degree, the Crusaders used violence or the threat of violence to bring about conversion of Muslims.

Introducing Liturgical Quod Libets: A new feature on the USC website in which we examine contested points in the Novus Ordo liturgy and attempt to resolve them using the Church's documents, history and common sense.

The "Wholesome Sweetness" of Good Homilies: A lesson in homiletics from St. Augustine of Hippo, taken from his classic work De Doctrina Christiana.

The Need for Theological Precision: A demonstration on the need for greater theological precision in modern Magisterial statements, using the example of the definitions of "scandal" given in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Revisiting the Cloud of Unknowing: A brief look at the spirituality of this classic work of late medieval mysticism.

St. Blane of Scotland (sancti obscuri)
St. Hybald of Bardney (sanci obscuri)

Movie Reviews
Masada (1981)
The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Act of Valor (2012)

Some other new things coming up:

I was unaware all this time that, despite the fact that my free RCIA outlines are viewable through the Mediafire site I am storing them on, they cannot be downloaded unless you install some very questionable and spammy looking software from Mediafire. Therefore, over the Spring I am going to be converting them from Mediafire over to Scribd so they can be not only viewed but downloaded as well. Hopefully this will be complete by summer.

In other news, my article on Cardinal Kasper admitting intentional ambiguity in the Vatican II documents became the most viewed page in the history of this blog, beating out long-standing champion Is Padre Pio Incorrupt? The article was linked up both on the Remnant website and on that of National Catholic Register, which no doubt helped with the hits.

Bless you for your continued patronage of this site.