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Archive for category Liturgical Spirituality

Lectio Divina and Liturgy

This is not catechesis. It is not exegesis. It is not Bible study. But it can be a kind of mystagogy, opening our hearts and lives to Christ’s presence in the Word.

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Restoring the Subculture

By Russell Shaw
“On the whole, I believe, liturgy done in any acceptable style by people who combine faith with good taste is likely to turn out well. And it will well serve the worship needs of American Catholics in the new Catholic subculture now starting to take shape.”

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The size of a name

“That’s a big name for such a little peanut!” A reflection on the gift of the divine name, given at Emmaus Chapel on April 18.

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Refresh my heart: “Send them out as prayer”

Here it is, the second week of Easter. The ice on the lake in my neighborhood is gradually receding. The grass is a slightly greenish shade of brown, and the geese are arriving, and I’m thinking about the proclamation of the word in the liturgy.

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Refresh my heart: Regreening creation and the human spirit

There’s nothing like a new infant to make you appreciate (also: sweat through) the Easter Vigil mass. My new daughter’s patroness and namesake, Hildegard of Bingen, draws a parallel between baptism and the “re-greening” of creation that occurs annually in spring (we’re still waiting on this in Minnesota).

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“Not so much about trappings and fine fabrics”: Pope Francis at Chrism Mass

“The beauty of all these liturgical things is not so much about trappings and fine fabrics than about the glory of our God resplendent in his people…” – Pope Francis

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Good Friday, the Child Abuse Scandal, and The Long Dark Winter’s Night

In his book The Long Dark Winter’s Night: Reflections of a Priest in a Time of Pain and Privilege, Father Philip Bergquist, formerly of St. Raphael Catholic Church in Fairbanks, Alaska, uses the metaphor of living through the long Alaskan winter to describe his own struggles with the crisis gripping the Roman Catholic church over the sexual abuse committed by priests and the reactions of bishops to that abuse. Theologically, it is a liturgical treatise on Good Friday, filled with stories and reflections about how a Church Grieving meets its suffering Savior at the foot of the cross, “where heaven’s hope and humanity’s wounds meet.”

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Reading the Language of Papal Clothing

A model drawn from social anthropology can shed light on the differences in papal vesture.

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Refresh my heart: A moment of expectation

As I’m preparing for the imminent arrival of my third child, this week is going to be rather busy! I’d like to share a reflection on another impending moment of imminent (liturgical) birth from Aemiliana Löhr.

Refresh my heart: Awake, O organ and guitar!

The celebrant at mass last night reminded us to keep an eye open, during Lent, for “thin places,” places where the barriers between us and the kingdom seem fragile, as if we might break through and see creation as God does at last.