For students of history a fundamental law of the discipline seems to be that history is simply doomed to repeat itself. As we've looked at Advent traditions throughout the previous posts we've gone through most of the disciplines, prayers, and celebrations we think of when we imagine Christmas and all its symbolism and practice. Trees, Wreaths, the Date/Calendar, and Saint … [Read more...]
Ratzinger, Luther, and Vatican II: An Episode in the History of Augustinianism
I was reading an old review from the Tablet today and it made me smile. It was discussing Cardinal Ratzinger before he was elected as Pope and made some interesting assertions that are rarely discussed any more, but were accepted at the time: "It is certainly strange that the 'enforcer' of Catholic orthodoxy should be a self-confessed anti-Thomist. His dislike of the views of … [Read more...]
Clerical Celibacy, Tradition, and Facts
"...when baptized he is attached at once to the rank of readers or exorcists, if, that is, it is clear that he had or has one wife and that he received her as a virgin. Two years after his initiation having elapsed, he can be made an acolyte and subdeacon for five more, and thus can be advanced to the diaconate, if during these times he was judged worthy. Then subsequently, … [Read more...]
Augustinian Spirituality, Advent, and the English Civil War(s)
One of the Great Anglican divines, Jeremy Taylor, lived through the chaotic period of the English Civil War(s) (1642-1651). During this time period the Church of England had its bishops removed, the Peerage dissolved, and the King beheaded. Presbyterians effectively took over the established Church and began to dismantle the rich liturgical Tradition of the Ecclessia … [Read more...]
Middle-Eastern Syncretism and Christmas
Apparently the issue of non-Christians celebrating Christmas was not merely a modern Western phenomena. Philip Jenkins' book on Middle Eastern and Oriental Christendom quotes one source that recorded: "Christians, Moslems, Jews and Nuseiriyeh [Alawites] visit each others' shrines. The Moslems take their insane, or "possessed" to get rid of their evil spirits in the cave of … [Read more...]