The Visitation & Monteverdi "Magnificat"

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah,  and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit  and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!  And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."  And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord . . .  (Luke 1:39-46)

Ghirlandaio: "The Visitation"

     Today's Feast of the Visitation is touches so many different reasons why we honor the Blessed Mother, it's hard to know where to begin. For one thing, there is the way in which Luke's narrative connects Mary, who is the Arc of the New Covenant, with the Arc of the Covenant from the Old Testament (for an excellent explanation, see Steve Ray's article here). We also see the first example of how we can come to know Jesus through Mary: notice how it is the sound of Mary's voice that causes the unborn John the Baptist to leap for joy. We see, too, an explicit affirmation from Elizabeth that it is because of Mary's trust in God, her "yes", that she is blessed.

    This is far from an exhaustive list; we could spend a very long and fruitful time meditating on the meanings contained in this one brief passage.  I do want to mention one more thing, however: the beautiful and powerful prayer that Mary proclaims when she meets Elizabeth, whose opening words can be found at the end of the passage above (I include the entire prayer below).  This is, of course, the prayer we know as the Magnificat. Today's Office of Readings contains a passage from the early 8th century English monk St. Bede (more commonly called "The Venerable Bede"), who says:

    

Therefore it is an excellent and fruitful custom of holy Church that we should sing Mary’s hymn at the time of evening prayer. By meditating upon the incarnation, our devotion is kindled, and by remembering the example of God’s Mother, we are encouraged to lead a life of virtue.

Twelve centuries later the Magnificat is still part of Evening prayer, and it is still “excellent and fruitful” for us to join in her prayer.

    The clip below is a lovely musical version of the Magnificat composed by Claudio Monteverdi.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children forever.  

(Lk 1:46-55)

Corpus Christi: William Byrd's "Ave Verum Corpus"

Today, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), we celebrate our Lord's unfathomable gift of Himself in the Holy Eucharist.  One of the most beautiful musical evocations of Christ's True Presence in the Eucharist is William Byrd's "Ave Verum Corpus" (Hail, True Body), performed in the clip below by The Tallis Scholars.

Blessed Margaret Pole, Martyred For Church And Marriage

Blessed Margaret Pole

Martyr of England. She was born Margaret Plantagenet, the niece of Edward IV and Richard III. She married Sir Reginald Pole about 1491 and bore five sons, including Reginald Cardinal Pole. Margaret was widowed, named countess of Salisbury, and appointed governess to Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon, Spain. She opposed Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the king exiled her from court, although he called her “the holiest woman in England.” When her son, Cardinal Pole, denied Henry’s Act of Supremacy, the king imprisoned Margaret in the Tower of London for two years and then beheaded her on May 28. In 1538, her other two sons were executed. She was never given a legal trial. She was seventy when she was martyred. Margaret was beatified in 1886. (from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

     I called my recent piece on St. Julia of Corsica “A Saint For Our Times”; when I think about it, I have yet to find a Saint who isn’t for our times. But today’s Saint, Blessed Margaret Pole, who gave her life in defense of the sanctity of marriage, seems especially suited to the situation of our increasingly post-Christian culture. The niece of two kings, Blessed Margaret was martyred because she refused to applaud publicly the sacrifice of Holy Matrimony to a third king’s lust.

Henry VIII

     Blessed Margaret’s antagonist, Henry VIII, could serve as a sort of patron “anti-saint” for our times. He was a man possessed of great gifts: he was given a strong, handsome, athletic body, a quick mind that he applied to writing and musical composition as well as to governing, and was entrusted with the rule of a rich and powerful kingdom. Henry never mastered himself, however, and so his prodigious talents were put at the service, not of his people, but of his equally prodigious cravings for women, wealth, and power. In the end he tried to swallow even the Church. In his later years his grossly obese body became a living image of his insatiable appetites.

     People come and go, but human nature doesn’t change. King Henry is long gone, but his imitators are still with us. Like Henry, they are not satisfied with mere tolerance or tacit assent: they require full-throated public approval, and so the Margaret Poles must be silenced. Nobody is literally being led to the block, thankfully, and pray God it never comes to that. Nevertheless, as we have seen over and over again,  those who stand up for Church, family, and traditional moral norms today, even if they do so privately, can expect to have their character blackened and their livelihoods threatened.

     I have often heard Blessed Margaret’s younger and much better known contemporary, St. Thomas More, proposed as a Patron Saint for our times because of his martyrdom in defense of the Church and Marriage. Like him, Blessed Margaret's firm reliance on Christ's loving care gave her the strength to stand fast in face of mortal threats, and the serenity not to be swallowed up in bitterness against her persecutors.  We would do well to invoke Blessed Margaret Pole along with St. Thomas More, and to pray for her intercession against the ravenous spirit of Henry VIII that yet again threatens both Faith and Family.

Those Who Love Him Will Keep His Commandments

(An earlier version of the Throwback post below appeared on 25 April 2015.)

Where there is no prophecy the people cast off restraint, 

but blessed is he who keeps the law.   (Proverbs 29:18)  

     Many years ago, shortly after I had returned to the Church after my youthful sojourn among the secular agnostics, I read a book called The Education of Henry Adams.  Although it doesn’t sound like it from the title, it is an autobiography, and the author was  the grandson of U.S. President John Quincy Adams, and the great-grandson of the second President and revolutionary leader John Adams.      The one thing from Adams’ book that made the largest impression on me was the author’s dissatisfaction with (among other things) the spiritual emptiness of the Unitarian churches which his family attended; here, the drama of Salvation had been reduced to little more than guidlines for moral conduct.  It struck me that these same churches, just a few generations earlier, had been peopled by zealous Calvinists fleeing the Anglican Church because it had, in their view, strayed too far from the Gospel.  What had happened?  How had they changed so much, so quickly?

     I concluded that the cause of the erosion of their faith was that they had cut themselves off from the guidance of the Apostolic Church, from the power of its Tradition and its infallible Magisterium, from the Church that St. Paul had named “The pillar and the foundation of the Truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).  After all, however zealous our belief, however sincere our intentions, we fallible humans tend to wander off course without direction from above. We can see the proof not only in Henry Adams’ Unitarians, but in Protestantism in general.  All the historic Reformation churches have gone through numerous changes, not just in externals but in doctrine, and have continued splintering until it is impossible to say how many separate ecclesial bodies there are.  Whatever the eccentricities or errors of individual Catholics, however,  and despite the two thousand years'  worth of baggage, the Catholic Church today is still, in its essentials, the Church of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and the Apostles.

A cafeteria is not a Wedding Feast

     Let me emphasize that this has nothing to do with the virtue or sincerity of individual Christians of any denomination.  I know and have worked with many non-Catholic Christians who live their faith in an exemplary way, and many Catholics who do not (including, sometimes, myself, I am sorry to say).  Over the long run, however, we can’t do it ourselves: we need Christ’s help, in the guidance of his Church and by the Grace that he confers through the Sacraments administered by that Church. More than that, it is through the Church and its sacraments that we most directly encounter Christ in this world.

     Of course there are Catholics, too, who don’t understand how essential the Church is to their relationship with their Lord.  They want to strip her of the things that they don’t like, but still receive the sacraments (when it suits them) and present themselves as Catholic.  The American Spectator recently republished an essay by David Carlin called “Reducing Religion Down”, subtitled “How Liberal Christians Shrink the Faith”, in which Carlin dissects this phenomenon, which he calls “Liberal Christianity”*, among both Catholics and other Christians.  He explains that 

            Liberal Christianity is made up of three reductions:

1.      The reduction of religion to morality.

2.      The reduction of morality to love of neighbor.

3.      The reduction of love of neighbor to tolerance plus welfare programs.

Notice that each of Carlin’s “reductions” becomes less demanding, and has less to do with our relationship with God.  Christian Faith becomes only a minor encumbrance, as Carlin explains:

The reduction of love of neighbor to tolerance plus welfare programs makes it relatively easy for very busy men and women to be good Christians.  Being tolerant of almost everything except murder, rape, arson, bank robbery, child molestation, and a small number of other crimes – this is something you can do, at least once you’ve developed a knack for it, with a minimum expenditure of time and energy.  As for loving by means of welfare programs, all you have to do is pay your taxes and vote the straight Democratic ticket.

     This is not so different from the process we saw at work in Henry Adams’ Unitarian Church, and it’s internal logic leads, in the end, to only one thing.  Here’s how Carlin wraps up:

Speaking roughly and generally, liberal Christianity (and liberal Judaism too, for what I’m saying applies mutatis mutandis to Judaism as well) is a way-station – a temporary motel, so to speak – on the great ideological highway that leads from classical Christianity at one terminus to atheism at the other.

     It makes perfect sense, once you think about it: having reduced the fullness of Christian faith to a mere moral code, and a pretty minimal one at that, there is no longer any perceived need for salvation: we can save ourselves by following “the law” (take that, St. Paul!).  There is therefore no need for the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in fact no need for God at all; we’ve got it all covered, thank you very much.

Diseases of the Soul

     Naturally, morality is very important: immoral acts lead to bad consequences in this world and can separate us and others from God forever; we are quite capable of sinning our way into Hell . . . but we cannot, by any effort of our own, earn our way into Heaven.  For that we need God’s Grace, which is administered through his Church . . . which, as we have seen, is just what those whom David Carlin calls liberal Catholics are ready to jettison in all but name.

Henry Adams

    I am reminded of Ursula LeGuin’s novel The Lathe of Heaven, in which the character called Dr. Haber, having discovered the power to turn dreams into reality, eventually turns the world into a living nightmare composed of fragments of different times and different realities, in which nothing really fits or works. At one point, hoping to remove sources of division between people, Haber creates a world in which everyone is the same shade of gray, with the vast variety of different characteristics that make each of us distinct persons erased.  I don’t think that LeGuin was a believing Christian, but she created a perfect picture  of what happens when we, with our finite understanding, try to remake God’s world in our own image: a monstrous absurdity in which, in the end, the human person is crushed.

     Finally, let’s return briefly to poor old Henry Adams.  His autobiography exudes ennui and malaise  (what one of Ursula LeGuin's characters called “French diseases of the soul”), a sense of boredom, pointlessness, and dissatisfaction.  He seems acutely aware of his own insignificance in the shadow of greater forebears.  He has been given a moral code, but no sense that he plays a unique but indispensable role in the vastness of creation . . . and no realization that he is loved eternally and infinitely.  The thing is, if we want to be loved, we must be prepared to love in turn, and Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my commandments”  (John 14:15).  If we only keep the commandments that suit us, however, we don’t love Jesus, we really love ourselves . . .  except we don't, because true love can only be directed to an Other. And a solitary existence without the Love of God is, in the end, a very sad, lonely way to spend eternity.

     

*Let it be noted that I’m not trying to slam people who identify themselves as “liberal”, a term which, as I explain in a recent post [here], belongs to secular politics and distorts the reality of what is happening in the Church;  I use the term here because that is what Carlin uses.  The difference here is not simply a matter of opinion and certainly not political philosophy, but is the difference between embracing the fullness of faith or reducing it down to whatever one finds agreeable.

Daytime Prayer Sanctifies Our Labors (LOH 9)

The Worth Revisiting post below (first published two years ago on the blog Principium et Finis) is the ninth in a series on the Liturgy of the Hours as a devotion for lay people (click for parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight) To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.  

    It is fitting, in a way, that this post on Daytime prayer comes last in the series, because Daytime Prayer (actually the three separate hours of Midmorning Prayer, Terce, Midday Prayer, Sext, and Midafternoon Prayer, None) is the most overlooked part of the Divine Office.  Without it, however, we do not enjoy the fullest experience of the daily Liturgy.

     Daytime prayer has traditionally contained three separate prayer hours, whose names come from the old Roman mode of designating time by counting the hours after dawn: Terce at the third hour (tertius is “third” in Latin), approximately 9:00 A.M., Sext at Noon, the sixth hour (in Latin sextus), and None from the Latin nonus, ninth, at that hour of the day (around 3:00 p.m.).   These hours are less prominent than the others in the overall scheme of the Liturgy, and so are considerably shorter.  Each contains  only three relatively short psalm readings (with their antiphons), a brief scripture reading (no more than one or two verses) and a closing prayer.

Daily Life is busy; New York's Little Italy c. 1900

   Their brevity is appropriate to the period of the day, when most of us are the busiest with our worldly occupations, and many people would find it impossible to fit in longer prayers.  They are also designed to be flexible: only one of these three prayer hours changes psalms according to the four week cycle each day and, except for some feast days, we can choose at which of the three hours we want to pray these psalms.  The benefit of this arrangement is that we won't miss any of the psalms if we pray even one of these three hours on a given day.  If we also pray one or both of the other two hours we use fixed psalms (called the Complementary Psalmody) that are the same every day.  Even the busiest layperson can normally find time to pray at least one of these brief hours during the day, and many of those under obligation to pray the Liturgy of the Hours are not required to pray all three. We should take the ease and flexibility of Daytime Prayer as an indication, not of its insignificance, but of how important it is, since the Church is making it so convenient to observe at least part of the Divine Office in the midst of our working day.
   And that is a great part of the value of these prayer hours.  It is possible to pray all the other hours before work in the morning and after we are finished in the evening, leaving the greater part of our day, the part that most occupies us mentally and physically, untouched by our sacred project of “sanctifying time”.  The very fact of interrupting the normal flow of things, even briefly, to turn our thoughts to God, and to pray with the sacred scriptures, draws together our fuller prayers in the morning and the evening to cover the whole day.

     We also find an emphasis in the psalms and prayers of Daytime Prayer that helps us to put whatever we do throughout the day into an “eternal” perspective.  We see many images of work, harvest, and, at None, the home life to which we are about to return.  Many of the psalms also emphasize God’s grace, mercy, and involvement in our lives.  For instance, the Complementary Psalmody for Midday Prayer includes Psalm 125, which begins:

            Those who put their trust in the Lord

            Are like Mount Zion, that cannot be shaken,

            That stands forever. . .   

The concluding prayer often directs our attention to the divine perspective on that particular part of our working day.  At the end of Terce on Monday of Week I, for instance, we are directed toward our labors to come:

            God our Father,

            work is your gift to us,

            a call to reach new heights

            by using our talents for the good of all.

            Guide us as we work and teach us to live

            in the spirit that has made us your sons and daughters,

            in the love that has made us brothers and sisters.

Then at Sext, when we are in the midst of our labors:

            Father,

            Yours is the harvest

            and Yours is the vineyard:

            You assign the task

            and pay a wage that is just.

            help us to meet this day’s responsibilities,

            and let nothing separate us from your love.

Finally, None’s  conclusion connects our mid-afternoon prayer to the prayer we see see Peter and the Apostles offering (see Acts 3:1) at the same time of day:

            Lord,

            You call us to worship You

            At the hour when the apostles went to pray in the temple . . .

As the last prayer on Monday connects the hour of the day with that hour in Salvation History, so the prayers for Friday of Week I give us an almost hourly recapitulation of the events of Good Friday.  The pray for Midmorning begins:

            Lord Jesus Christ,

            at this hour you led out

            to die on the cross

            for the salvation of the world . . .  

Then at Midday Prayer:

            Lord Jesus Christ,

            At noon, when darkness covered all the earth,

            You mounted the wood of the cross . . .

And finally, the prayer at Midafternoon begins:

            Lord Jesus Christ,

            You brought the repentant thief

            From the suffering of the cross

            To the joy of your kingdom . . .

     No discussion of Daytime prayer would be complete for me if I didn’t mention two of my favorite psalms, 127 and 128, which we find in Midafternoon Complementary Psalmody.  Both point to the home to which we are about to return.  On a deeper level they help us look at the work day that is nearing completion in the context of God’s abundance and mercy, and remind us that He rewards those who rely upon Him.  Psalm 127  begins with an image of a house under construction to represent our need for God’s help: “If the Lord does not build the house/In vain do its builders labor”; the last half of the psalm depicts God’s abundant blessings, as represented by our children:

            Truly sons are a gift from the Lord,

            A blessing, the fruit of the womb.

            Indeed the sons of youth

            Are like arrows in the hand of a warrior.

The Wife a Fruitful Vine: "A Hearty Welcome", Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Psalm 128, the final Psalm of Daytime Prayer, beautifully encapsulates the whole day of work by pointing to its end, in which we see the whole chain of love and abundance.  Here, our “yes” to God’s love for us finds fruitfulness in our work under His care, reflected in the fruitfulness of our wife, who is compared to a flourishing vine. That abundance is in turn passed on to our children and to our children’s children.  I can think of no better closing for this essay than to reproduce Psalm 128 in full:

O blessed are those who fear the Lord

and walk in his ways!

By the labor of your hands you shall eat.

You will be happy and prosper;

the wife like a fruitful vine

in the heart of your house;

Your children like shoots of the olive,

around the your table.

Indeed thus shall be blessed

the man who fears the Lord.

May the Lord bless you from Zion

all the days of your life!

May you see your children's children

in a happy Jerusalem!

On Israel, peace!     

St. Julia of Corsica: A Saint For Our Time

 Today is not a major feast day in the Church's liturgical calendar but, as always, there are saints whose feasts are celebrated.  One of the more interesting of today's saints is St. Julia of Corsica (also known as St. Julia of Carthage).  There is an account below taken from Butler's Lives of the Saints, with my commentary afterward:

"St. Julia" by Gabriel von Max

St. Julia of Corsica
St. Julia was a noble virgin of Carthage, who, when the city was taken by Genseric in 489 [sic -  Carthage was actually captured by Genseric and the Vandals in 439], was sold for a slave to a pagan merchant of Syria named Eusebius. Under the most mortifying employments of her station, by cheerfulness and patience she found a happiness and comfort which the world could not have afforded.
      All the time she was not employed in her master's business was devoted to prayer and reading books of piety. Her master, who was charmed with her fidelity and other virtues, carried her with him on one of his voyages to Gaul. Having reached the northern part of Corsica, he cast anchor, and went on shore to join the pagans of the place in an idolatrous festival. Julia was left at some distance, because she would not be defiled by the superstitious ceremonies which she openly reviled.
     Felix, the governor of the island, who was a bigoted pagan, asked who this woman was who dared to insult the gods. Eusebius informed him that she was a Christian, and that all his authority over her was too weak to prevail with her to renounce her religion, but that he found her so diligent and faithful he could not part with her. The governor offered him four of his best female slaves in exchange for her. But the merchant replied, "No; all you are worth will not purchase her; for I would freely lose the most valuable thing I have in the world rather than be deprived of her." However, the governor, while Eusebius was drunk and asleep, took upon him to compel her to sacrifice to his gods. He offered to procure her liberty if she would comply. The Saint made answer that she was as free as she desired to be as long as she was allowed to serve Jesus Christ. Felix, thinking himself derided by her undaunted and resolute air, in a transport of rage caused her to be struck on the face, and the hair of head to be torn off, and lastly, ordered her to be hanged on a cross till she expired. Certain monks of the isle of Gorgon carried off her body; but in 768 Desiderius, King Of Lombardy, removed her relics to Brescia, where her memory is celebrated with great devotion.

     A few points stand out from the account of St. Julia’s life.  First and foremost, her devotion to Christ and her courage in the face of unspeakable suffering is an inspiration to us.  Maybe, the next time I’m tempted to “go along with the crowd” simply because I’m afraid of the disapproval or verbal abuse of others, I’ll take some strength from Julia’s fortitude in the face of much, much worse persecution.

     Julia also shows us the power of example.  Clearly, her character and virtue made a large impression on her master Eusebius. While her diligence and fidelity alone were not enough to win him over to the faith, at least not right away, they did give him the courage to stand up to the governor Felix, and convince him not to give her up for, literally, any price.  None of the accounts I have seen, unfortunately, tell us anything about what eventually happened to Eusebius.  One wonders whether the example of her heroic martyrdom was finally enough to make him a Christian.  We do know that the witness of the martyrs was crucial to the conversion of very many people, for which reason Tertullian said: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."

 

The Benham Brothers

    Julia's story also tells us something about the nature of sin.  I am reminded yet again of Father Richard John Neuhaus’ aphorism:  “When orthodoxy becomes optional, sooner or later it will become proscribed”.  What he meant was that simply by doing the right thing one is seen as a rebuke to those who are not doing right.  Look at Julia: she wasn’t interfering with the pagan festival, she was simply staying away.  The governor, however, couldn’t tolerate anyone who was not actively endorsing his activities.  How often we have seen this same attitude today.  Granted, at least in the United States, nobody is literally being crucified, although the advocates of a “New Orthodoxy” will certainly try to destroy the reputation and livelihood of anyone who does not publicly cheer for their innovations.  A recent example is that of the Benham Brothers, whose planned home improvement program on the HGTV network was cancelled [see here] because the brothers, who are evangelical Christians, publicly oppose abortion and gay marriage.  It appears that the activists who intimidated HGTV also successfully pressured the bank with whom the Benhams have worked for years to sever ties – at least until the counter-reaction from Christians and others concerned with the erosion of personal freedom caused them to reconsider.  The bank now claims that the whole thing was simply a misunderstanding [here].

     But sin's not the end of the story, either.  We have seen throughout the history of the Church the truth of the aphorism, "The bigger they come, the harder they fall"; zealous persecutors from St. Paul himself to the Nazi death-camp guards who were awed by the martyrdom of St. Maximilian Kolbe have been converted, often by witnessing the faith and Christ-like serenity of their victims.  The ancient accounts don't tell us, but the governor Felix might well have been one of these.  Whether or not he himself was moved in this way, we can be sure that many of the other pagan witnesses were.  

     Finally, the example of St. Julia of Corsica has continued to inspire people through the centuries and is still with us to this day as a reminder that, although there there will always be defeats along the way, Christ wins in the end.  If we can put our faith in that, as Julia did, we can persevere. As St. Peter said: " Rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed" (1 Peter 13).

Trinity Sunday & "O God Almighty Father"

Guercino, "The Holy Trinity"

  Today is Trinity Sunday, on which we commemorate the unique and absolutely necessary Christian doctrine that God is simultaneously One and Three.  The word “Trinity” is the Anglicized form of the Latin Trinitas, which was coined by Tertullian in the early third century.  It is a combination of the prefix tri- (three) and unitas (unity).  I once took a class from a gentleman who was fond of saying that it’s almost impossible to discuss the Trinity in detail without falling into heresy. I’m sure he was only half-serious, although if you’ve ever wondered why Tertullian isn’t “Saint” Tertullian, well, he fell into heresy later in life . . . but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

    Perhaps because the Trinity is such a deep concept, there aren't a lot of Trinitarian hymns (certainly not on YouTube, anyway), but here's an old favorite, in a beautiful video created by JMJ HF videos.  I have included information about the group, which relies on charitable donations, beneath the video.   Please take a look.

From the website of the St. Vincent Ferrer Foundation of Texas:

The St. Vincent Ferrer Foundation of  Texas was founded by Catholic laity to spread, promote, and foster the practice of traditional Catholicism with a focus on the Traditional Latin Mass. We promote fidelity to the immutable teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and her perennial Magisterium in doctrine, morals, sacred liturgy, and all facets of Catholic life. Our goal is to help Catholics recover the beauty, majesty, and truth of the glorious Catholic Faith. May our humble efforts in cooperation with God's manifold grace help individuals, families and society restore all things in Christ

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