Semel ergo breve praeceptum tibi praecipitur...

At Cornell Society, a lovely essay on the famous passage from the seventh homily of St Augustine on the First Epistle of St John ad Parthos: "Dilige, et quod vis fac"--'love, and do what you will'.  "For the source of love is within, and nothing but good can derive from...

St Gertrude the Great

Robert Imbelli at Commonweal, on St Gertrude of Helfta: "the price of such attention [to the Word of God--MP] may well be for us, what is was for Gertrude: the turning of a world upside down".  "Alia vero ceciderunt in terram bonam et dabant fructum: aliud centesimum,...

A false 'dark night of the soul'

I have no idea who Diogenes at Catholic World News' Off the Record is; one hopes that in private life he is full of charity: but even if he is the unattractive curmudgeon he sometimes seems to be, in print, there is no gainsaying the basic correctness of his post yesterday on...

"True Catholicism"

I noted this comment at one of the admirable and indeed praiseworthy Catholic sites this morning:As the subtle signs of his papacy's character emerge, there is great hope that Pope Benedict will be a gentle champion of true Catholicism (traditionalism). Indeed, in spite of...

Cardinal Giovanni Bona on the Holy Mass

Father Tim Finnigan at Hermeneutic of Continuity is translating Giovanni Bona, a Cistercian and cardinal of the Holy Roman Church from 1669; from his De Sacrificio Missae--which Fr Finnigan found in the St John's Seminary library at Wonersh.  Cardinal Bona is quite...

Among the Spanish martyrs...

At Rorate Coeli today, a moving tribute to the Spaniards martyred during the Civil War at Paracuellos, seventy years ago, by the atheist materialists. 

Communio viventium ac mortuorum

At Cornell Society, a visit to a Catholic cemetery in Burlington, Ontario: the Hamilton diocesan cemetery, evidently.But most encouraging of all was it to see that this was a resting place still full of life and memory. The Church has diminished greatly in these years, to be...