Author: Kimberly Hope Belcher
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What is the Church? A reflection on the readings for Friday during the Easter Octave
“What is the Church?” Simon Peter said to the other disciples, “I am going fishing.” Simon Peter, the passionate. “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Simon Peter, the spokesman. “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Simon Peter, the failure….
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On science and the sacred
What does dust have to do with the sacramental world of the liturgy? Maybe science can tell us. If scientific language feels irreverent and laughable in our prayer, it might be because it isn’t our native language as it is the scientists of the Vatican Observatory. But then we have a problem….
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The Lord often reveals to the younger what is best
I have this set of juice glasses in my house. I have been putting them away in the cabinet a few times a week for three years. I have a 10 year old boy in my house, too…
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What does a Hanukkah video mean to a Christian liturgist?
This was tonight’s Maccabeats Hanukkah video because tonight I attempted latkes for the first time (they’re good!). But also, it weaves together the meaning of food, family, and faith in a way that I find beautiful and admirable.
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Friars against the monks! Monks against the friars!
Sometimes you uncover an old dispute simmering under the unassuming cover of a Hesburgh Library volume…
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Chanting the texts of the liturgy, from Tim O’Malley at Church Life
Tim O’Malley has a fascinating opinion piece over at Church Life today. He’s in favor of chant, not instead of hymnody, but instead of reading. I have to admit I find this argument intriguing: Last Sunday, we went to the Melkite Liturgy on campus. The entire liturgy, as anyone knows who has attended Eastern liturgies,…
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Feast of St Hildegard of Bingen
Thanks to the Liturgical Press’s recent release of Robert Ellsberg’s Blessed Among Us, I have another choice to read aloud for these family celebrations. Today’s reflection on Hildegard is beautiful: “Within the cosmos, [Hildegard] wrote, human beings are the thinking heart, called to be cocreators with God in shaping the world. Both the cosmos and…
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Sacramentality and foundational experience: a reflection on Bruce Morrill’s The Essential Writings of Bernard Cooke
In June, I had the pleasure of participating in a panel at the CTSA celebrating and commenting on the publication of Bruce Morrill’s new book, The Essential Writings of Bernard Cooke (Paulist Press, 2016) (Amazon link). In my presentation, which developed Cooke’s understanding of sacramentality (chapter 3 of the book), I commented that it would be…