Some insights from the nationally-known cantor clinician Joe Simmons, at the NPM Convention.
Read moreCategory: Lectionary / Liturgy of Word
Responsorial Psalm and Antiphon for 18th OT C—haven’t we talked about this before?
Attempting to accomplish another task, I was just consulting the USCCB website for August 4, 2013 and was reminded that there is a problem with
Read more“Biblical” Prayers of the People?
I find myself quite ambivalent about attempts to the link the Prayers of the People with the biblical readings for the day. Why not simply announce the intentions, and leave it at that?
Read moreDid the pre-Vatican II Mass really have more Scripture than now?
I thought it’d be interesting once to do the math. So I made a little chart with the 1962 Scripture readings (including the propers) on the left and the reformed lectionary readings (presuming no propers) on the right for the coming Sunday, July 7.
Read moreRefresh 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.
Read moreMore about SC 24, Sacred Scripture, and the Lectionaries
All readers of this blog are grateful to Father Joncas for his series on re-reading of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy [SC]. But do
Read moreIn the sixth month: a Christmas reflection
What sets apart the Visitation from any other visit from one pregnant woman to another? Prophetic recognition.
Read moreHear, O Israel!
Deuteronomy 6:4-6 is the first part of the Shema Yisra’el, the text that has formed the centerpiece of Jewish daily prayer in the evening and morning from the time of Jesus until today. The first commandment he gives in this week’s gospel, therefore, was as familiar and everyday and fundamental to his audience as the Lord’s Prayer is for Christians today.
Read moreRiddles and parables and the pursuit of wisdom
I get a lot of my theological energy from dabbling in things that, on the face of it, are not theology. Fantasy is one of those things, and always has been — you might almost say that the first theological work I read, or perhaps the first work I read theologically, was the Lord of the Rings. There are works of fantasy I go to when I think my theological imagination is exhausted, and I find it again there. These are books that are not really about magic, but about mystery: about what draws us on, inward into ourselves and outward into the world in spite of our fear of what we might find in either place.
Read moreThis Week’s Discussion Question: The presider’s responsibilities
The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, says in §11: “But in order that the liturgy may be able to produce its full effects,
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