The Co-Redemptive Suffering of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

This month I have been working through the classic 1957 book The Sanctifier by Luis M. Martinez, Archbishop of Mexico. The Sanctifier is one of the great modern texts on the Holy Spirit, an incredibly rich work that I recommend for anybody seeking deeper insight into the way the Holy Spirit affects our sanctification.

Dancing, Moral Panics, and Boomerism

Recently I have been working through the fascinating book Catholic Revivalism: The American Experience 1830-1900 by Jay P. Dolan (University of Notre Dame Press, 1978). Dolan's work chronicles the phenomenon of Catholic revivalist meetings in the United States throughout the 19th century. From the 1830s to the turn of the century, traveling Catholic evangelists—largely Redemptorists, Jesuits, Passionists, and later the Paulist Fathers—held large outdoor "missions" analagous to the better-known Protestant tent revivals of the Second Great Awakening. The purpose of these missions was to rekindle the faith in the small (but growing) Catholic population of America who, due to their scattered geographic distribution, often had little access to the sacraments and led anemic faith lives.

Active Participation and the Lowest Common Denominator

It has been said that the Novus Ordo represents the apotheosis of active participation as the first principle of liturgical worship over and above all other considerations, including ritual integrity or even what is fitting for divine worship. I had a harsh realization about this several years ago when I was on vacation and had to go to Mass at some random church (don't the worst liturgical stories always seem to happen when we are on vacation?)

"Vindicate Me, O God"—A Defense of the Psalms

Domine, exaudi orationem meam, et clamor meus ad te veniat.

1. Since the beginning of Christianity, the Psalter has formed the core of Christian prayer. We see this right from the New Testament; St. Paul tells the Ephesians to "address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs"; elsewhere he advises the Colossians to "admonish one another in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God." (Eph. 5:19, Col. 3:16) The First Epistle of Clement, one of the earliest Christian writings outside of the New Testament, quotes the psalms upwards of fifty times, testifying to the deep integration of the psalms into the apostolic Church's worship and piety.