In his inaugural address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stressed to the people of the United States, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Nothing to fear! Really! We were facing lengthy wars in Europe and in the Pacific. There … [Read more...]
Questions Answered
April 28, 2018 by Fr. Brian Mullady, OP
Question: What is the origin of female altar servers? Answer: Female altar servers are a fact of life in the Church since 1992. The ability of girls to serve at Mass is established by papal authority, so one must accept their possibility … [Read more...]
Conversion, Consecration, Communion
Movements into Salvation
January 23, 2018 by R. Thomas Richard, PhD
The Sequence in Salvation History This sequence—Conversion, Consecration, Communion—can describe three steps in several important processes, in the Catholic Faith. Historically, it can describe periods in the salvation history of humanity. … [Read more...]
You Shall Rejoice In Your Festival
December 30, 2017 by Fr. Tim McCauley
Why do we need a command to rejoice in our religious festivals? Simply look out at the sea of faces in the average congregation on a Sunday morning. God instructed the people through Moses, regarding the three major Jewish festivals of … [Read more...]
Is There Really Any Hope for a Return to the Traditional Latin Mass?
Interview with Dr. Peter Kwasniewski
December 12, 2017 by Roseanne T. Sullivan
In the essays by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, collected in Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of Ages, Dr. Kwasniewski writes as an unabashed adherent for the traditional Latin Mass. He is positive not only … [Read more...]
An October Mystagogy
A Proposal
November 27, 2017 by Fr. Benjamin Roberts
We count people in October. Each year in the parishes of the dioceses of the province of Atlanta, we count the number of people who are attending Mass each weekend. The reason for the choice of this particular month has been lost to … [Read more...]
Blessed Are Those
The Holy Mass as the Heavenly Wedding Banquet of the Lamb
October 19, 2017 by Marcus Benedict Peter
Amongst the many images of the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, Catholic Christians are used to constantly thinking of the Mass as sacrifice, fellowship, and fraternal meal, yet few evoke such an intimate sense as that of a wedding feast. … [Read more...]
Liturgy as an Act of Leisure
Perspectives from Guardini, Pieper, and Ratzinger
May 1, 2017 by Veronica A. Arntz
We frequently hear that the liturgy is the “source and summit” of the Christian life, a quote from the Vatican II document, Lumen gentium. We often do not get the whole context for this small part of the quote. In a slightly different tran … [Read more...]
Early Spring Reading
March 26, 2017 by Book Reviews
Jennifer Roback Morse & Betsy Kerekes, 101 Tips for Marrying the Right Person (Notre Dame, IN.: Ave Maria Press 2016), 127 pp. $13.95. Paperback. ISBN-13: 978-1-59471-671-3. Reviewed by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. Raïssa M … [Read more...]
The Dialectic of Mutual Glorification
November 4, 2016 by Brandon P. Otto
In the past century or so, dialectic has become a tool for analyzing many areas of life and thought: we might consider the dialectic between “being-for-itself” (l’être-pour-soi), and “being-for-others” (l’être-pour-autrui) in the philosophy … [Read more...]
Questions Answered
April 14, 2016 by Fr. Brian Mullady, OP
Question: I am very confused about the removal of temporal punishment due to sin in the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. Some say no, but the Pocket Catholic Catechism by John Hardon, S.J., 1989, states: “Also the guilt and temporal p … [Read more...]
What’s Changed?
A Comparison of Self- and Divine-Referential Pronoun Usage in Hymns Written Pre- and Post-Vatican II
July 12, 2015 by J.E. Sigler
“He that sings praise, not only sings, but also loves him of whom he sings.”—St. Augustine Noticeable Change in Pre- & Post-Vatican II Hymns Some HPR readers may be unaware that people have been arguing about the language of Church hym … [Read more...]
The Solemnities of June
Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart of Jesus
June 13, 2015 by Stephanie A. Mann
This June is a very solemn month. There are six solemnities on the liturgical calendar: Pentecost Sunday, Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles. … [Read more...]
The Thrill of Anticipation: Encountering God in the Eucharist
May 31, 2015 by Sr. Teresa Benedicta Block, OP
How Previous Ages have seen the Eucharist At one point during the Communist takeover in China, the Communists came to a remote village where Catholicism was lived with great vigor. They imprisoned the local priest in his own rectory, … [Read more...]
The Glory of the Mass
July 10, 2014 by Rev. Thomas G. Morrow
Obviously, the Mass is a glorious thing. It is the way God continues to feed his people; it is the way Jesus Christ—God made flesh—keeps his promise never to leave us orphans. Those who attend daily Mass have been given an unmatchable gra … [Read more...]
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