Your unworthy servant has traveled up the valley of the River Adige, to the region where the second language (after Italian) is no longer English, but German. The Fathers of the Council of Trent did not have Trenitalia to transport them. The mendicant friars who advised the bishops likely came on foot, from their homes […]
We keep the feast of our Lady’s immortality. Not just her immortality of soul, but also her immortality of body. Today her earthly pilgrimage ended. Her flesh, rather than facing the corruption of the grave, entered right into heaven. Blessed is she who believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be […]
We read at Holy Mass today from Genesis, about how a separation occurred. Lot went one way, to the Jordan Plain. Then God made a prodigious promise to Abram. Today, we, too, say farewell to each other, dear Roanoke–like Lot and Abram. The Lord has apportioned to me the fruitful plains to the south. Actually, […]
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. (from the gospel at today’s Holy Mass) At the beginning of today’s Mass, we acknowledged that God provided us with Pope St. Pius V so that, among other […]
* Can a man of the cloth publicly admit that he has a hopeless crush on George Eliot? *
Devoted readers know that we have often referred to the Roman basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, St. Mary Major. Some of us visited this beautiful church last fall. The location for the Roman basilica of Our Lady was determined by a small patch of snowfall which occurred in the heat of Roman summer. Fr. Zuhlsdorf […]
Across the street from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., there is a seminary. My mother grew up with a beloved pastor at her hometown church. When he died in 1997, we went to Lancaster for the funeral. The pastor’s best friend taught at the seminary across from F&M. He preached the funeral. One […]
After a week of pressing hard towards the goal, many of us were the worse for wear today. Speaking for myself, the tiredness in my legs made the whole day seem like a climb up the Holy Steps of Jerusalem. (More about this below.) The Pope has four Major Basilicas in Rome. The pilgrim to […]
When I was in the Holy Land in February, we visited the cave in Bethlehem where St. Jerome spent years translating the Holy Scriptures. The cave is just a few yards from the grotto of the Nativity of Christ. St. Jerome was originally laid to rest in a little chapel in his cave in Bethlehem. […]
Greetings to you from the neighborhood of Santa Maria Maggiore. After an afternoon stop in Orvieto, we have arrived in Rome. We had a beautiful morning in Assisi to bid a bittersweet goodbye to Sts. Francis and Clare. Yours truly took advantage of the nearby friary full of Franciscan priests, and I went to Confession. […]
Father Mark White Blog 