Since the allowance of the vernacular in the Mass following Vatican II, the idea of people having their own Roman Missal has fallen into relative obscurity. The erroneous thinking that the Roman Missal was simply there to help one follow the Latin has, sadly, resulted in a temporal and eternal disconnect with the liturgical and spiritual heartbeat of the Church. The liturgical year of the Catholic Church is far more than an artificial collection of feasts and seasons. It is a profound and soul-altering spiritual rhythm that provides a veracity as real as cosmic time. The Roman Missal provides us with a vital navigational tool for the spiritual reality of our glorious faith.

Praying the...READ MORE

I recently had the opportunity to interview with his Excellency Archbishop Naumann of the archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas for Register Radio on an important work going on in his archdiocese to train spiritual mentors. Because of the time constraints of the show we had to cut it down quite a bit. Below you will find the content of the longer interview.

Archbishop Naumann has a deep commitment to the spiritual welfare of those under his care and has demonstrated that commitment through tangible and significant means of catechesis and formation that I hope inspires other diocese and laypeople to pursue the same. I have had the opportunity to review the content of a number of the courses...READ MORE

Each year the ornaments, greenery, and tinsel make an earlier appearance. One laments the distortion of autumn and Thanksgiving under the ever-growing Christmas hegemony. Still, another commonly overshadowed event will come and pass this Sunday, the feast of The Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In 1925 the celebration of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quas Primas. For many Catholics the feast day approaches with little to no grandeur, and the celebration of the Lord’s Kingship is another ephemeral Sunday before the dawn of Christmas. Still, the Feast of Christ the King is just that, a feast. Though a hackneyed term in the Catholic mind, Catholics must...READ MORE

“The Church draws her life from the Eucharist. This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church.”  With these words Pope John Paul II opened his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia.

The Second Vatican Council said that sacred music “is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as a combination of sacred music and words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 112).

In our liturgical worship, Christians unite the sacred words of chants and hymns with our human voices lifted in gratitude and...READ MORE

St. Albert the Great was considered the “wonder and the miracle of his age” by his contemporaries. He was an assiduous Dominican whose accomplishments and gifts to the Church would be difficult to exaggerate. Born in c. 1206 and joining the Order of Preachers in 1223, Albert quickly became a master of almost every academic subject. Not withstanding the standards of his own time, he became a pioneer of the natural sciences –- both empirical and philosophical. His teachings on nature and theology were revolutionary, and he captured the attention of a young and taciturn Dominican –- St. Thomas Aquinas. While surpassing all his contemporaries in intellect and cogency, it was his own student...READ MORE

The Greco-Roman world struggled to understand many things about early Catholicism. At first, it was simply regarded as another fertility cult. Rumors of Catholics participating in cannibalism and orgies — primarily misunderstandings of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist — were common. But perhaps it was the issue of priestly celibacy that most perplexed and held the attention of the pagan world. As early as AD 150, Justin Martyr wrote to Emperor Antoninus Pius explaining the practice, and later, the famous emperor Marcus Aurelius discussed the observance with Athenagoras of Athens. It’s recorded that the “pagan physician Galen marveled at the [masculinity] of Christian...READ MORE

There stood Emperor Julian, the last Roman Emperor in the dynasty of Constantine. Breaking the line of Christian emperors, Julian had returned to Rome’s pagan religious roots and was desperately attempting to manufacture a revival. Before him was a young, but accomplished, soldier named Martin. Desiring to seek out St. Hilary, the bishop of Poitiers, and be ordained, the young Roman legionnaire had requested a dismissal. In reply, Julian scolded Martin as a coward. To this, the young man said, “With the sign of the cross, I shall more certainly break through the ranks of the enemy than if armed with shield and sword.” The young soldier went off to live an exemplary life and become known...READ MORE

We have our deacons and our religious directors, our priests and bishops and our cardinals … and our pope. We have confession, the Eucharist, penance, indulgences, litanies and prayers repetitively prayed to Christ’s mother. Yet, what of Christ? As our protestant brothers and sisters contend, has the Catholic Church inserted a bloated bureaucracy of man-made religious practices between Christ and his people? 

In contradistinction, our Protestant brothers and sisters — especially evangelicals — speak of a personal relationship with Christ as the primary mark of the faith. There is no mountain of rituals populated by ecclesial bureaucrats.  They speak of a certain sweet simplicity. It is...READ MORE