A journal of byzantine digressionS
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Scott Hahn at my Church!
Join us for a morning of Scripture Study with Scott Hahn! Saturday 22 April 2023, from 9:00 AM – 12:45 PM. You can register here. This is our launch event for our 150th Anniversary celebration!
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Misty Morning Sunrise
THE BOOK OF Ecclesiastes, named Kohelet or Qohelet in the Hebrew text (קֹהֶלֶת), is one of the Wisdom Books in the Hebrew Scriptures which can be read as meditation texts rather than literal “rules”. In fact, if you read the Wisdom Books without context, there are some serious contradictions between Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes in
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The Lay Faithful Essay 2
The Assignment: In less than six hundred words, what is important about using the correct terminology in referring to the ways the lay faithful collaborate with the ordained ministry? FOR THIS QUESTION, it seemed useful to draw on liturgical theology. In the work of the late Fr Alexander Schmemann, especially his Eucharist, he discusses how
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Judicial Reform
I’m not a huge fan of Americans telling other countries how to run their politics. (We tend to call that cultural colonialism if we don’t agree with the interference, liberation if we do agree.) Understanding those other places is a different thing from trying to fix them. I’ve been trying to understand what’s going on
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The Lay Faithful Essay 1
The Assignment: In less than six hundred words, what is the secular character of the lay faithful and how is it related to the universal call to Christian holiness? The most direct answer, in need of unpacking, is found in Lumen Gentium 31, cited in both CL (repeatedly) and in Aumann’s On the Front Lines
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A Song of Degrees
SOMETIMESYou are like a child holding me by the handDaddy Look! Daddy Look! Daddy Look!As if you’re as amazed as Iat Birdsor tiny purple flowers on rosemaryOf the swirls of oilOpalescent on puddles in sunlightSometimesYou’re like a docent Showing me from one spectacle to the nextand sharing all that is happeningWatch how this clock turnsor
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Of Incidents and Accidents.
The Readings for the Sunday of St Gregory Palamas The Second Sunday of the Great Fast AS THE Observance of the Great Fast evolved in the Eastern Church, each Sunday was assigned a special devotion: the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the Sundays of St Gregory, of St John, of St Mary, and the Sunday of the
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The Difference
AS POSTED OVER ON My Hebrew language blog, I’ve been wondering about these two songs. My limited skill in that language did not prevent me from hearing the same words rolled around in two very different songs. Give a listen. Turning on the captions for the first one to see an English translation. I’m sorry
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Of Icons & Hosts
The Readings for the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy The First Sunday of the Great Fast HEARING OF A BYZANTINE CATHOLIC podcast called What God is Not, I decided to give a listen to a ByzCath Nun, Mother Natalia, and Fr Michael O’Loughlin, a priest of the Eparchy of Phoenix. I was instantly drawn
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A Tale of Two Kisses
SOLOMON WRITES FOR the Bride these words, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” Certainly, that is the desire of our hearts, that the Lord should kiss us so. Yet, as in a dream where everything is one’s own mind speaking, so in scripture, everything is God’s own word. And how our
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The BVM, Challah, and Celibacy
SO, AS WAS EARLIER mentioned I’ve been wrestling with an article from First Things, published in 2002, called Celibacy in Context. I don’t mean “wrestling” as in struggling with, but rather as in Jacob saying to God, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” Celibacy is not only hard for some folks
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A Helper
DOING A GOOGLE ON A First name is such an interesting project: you find a lot of people with that name, of course – people you did not know, some stars, a few politicians, sometimes a saint or scoundrel if there is one that is particularly notable. Names common in other languages sometimes result in
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Language
I’VE JUST FINISHED Another 40 hours of Hebrew with the wonderful folks at Citizen’s Cafe Tel Aviv. Their class schedule just does not fit with my life this semester though, so I’ve taken on three hours of class time a week working with two tutors at iTalki: Shmuel and Gil. While both are helping me
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The Purpose of Liturgy
FATHER ABBOT LOOKED AT ME. Mr Novice, Day Two. I had said something like, “yes, I can make the Daily Hours and Mass, and I see the Lectio Divina on the daily schedule, but when do I pray?” He asked what I meant. And I replied, “Usually I wake up and say these morning prayers,
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The Parable of Rabbits & Pigs
The Readings for the Sunday of the Last Judgement Meatfare HERE IS A PRECES of our parable: Jesus says at the Last Judgement God will divide us as a farmer does the sheep from the goats. The sheep will find out that they have often fed, clothed, and cared for Jesus. And they will say
Orthoparadoxy 