While celebrating Mass yesterday for the memorial of St. Ambrose, I was struck by the new English translation of the collect.
Archive for category Saints / Mary
“Like Mary, we can be pure by God’s gift, but, unlike her, we need to be cleansed.” – Bruce Harbert
How many heads did Saint John the Baptist have? And whatever happened to the eye of Saint Edward Oldcorne?
On this memorial of the “Little Flower,” I had to think of Thomas’ Merton’s discovery of Saint Thérèse.
In the regional German calendar, September 17 is first and foremost the memorial of the great twelfth-century visionary, monastic leader, writer, composer, and preacher Hildegard of Bingen, who died on this day in 1179. The only problem is that Hildegard was never officially canonized – or she would in all likelihood be another doctor of the church by now.
“Adorn your house if you will, but do not forget your brother in distress. He is a temple of infinitely greater value.”
There is something striking about the distinctly different ways in which two saints who are the Christ-bearers par excellence are represented: Mary, the Mother of God, and St. Christopher.
On this feast day of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, I give thanks for the reminder that Catholic liturgy needs both bees and bodies.
“I had absorbed a subtle lie: if I imitated Mary, I would become weak, passionless, and boring—the antithesis of the modern woman. Mary was an old-school relic that had nothing to do with me. Little about her life was applicable to mine. … Then I became a mother.”
I gave thanks this morning for the feast day of the woman who was charged by Christ with proclaiming the good news of the resurrection to the “brothers.” Mary’s subsequent proclamation has become part of the foundational witness of our faith: “I have seen the Lord!” (John 20:18).