As Catholics throughout the world face closed doors at church, our Lenten fast has changed. We think of Lent as a time of giving up bad things and engaging in deeper prayer. Abstaining from attending Mass would not seem to Read more…
I stumbled across the pilgrim plague survivor, St. Rocco, when I was 15. It was my first time in Europe, visiting my aunt who was studying at the University of Montpellier (founded c. 1292) in southern France. I hadn’t heard Read more…
Medieval Lent was, to say the least, a lot harder. The season’s origins come from the early catechumenate, which led converts through a multi-day period of intense prayer and fasting before their initiation at the Easter vigil. Eventually, this time Read more…
Wine, Romanesque architecture, and the monastic life, all reached their high point in the Middle Ages, tucked away in the province of Burgundy. You may not have heard of Cluny, but, from its humble founding in 910, it quickly constructed Read more…
Victor Hugo begins The Hunchback of Notre Dame, amazingly, by discussing a fire! Not any fire, but one that destroyed a beautiful and historical Gothic building. The story opens in the Grand Hall of Paris’ Royal Palace on the 6th Read more…
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), an Oxford convert mentored by St. John Henry Newman, stands among the greatest Catholic poets in the English language. After teaching at Newman’s oratory in Birmingham, Hopkins entered the Jesuits and, after numerous teaching positions in Read more…
My family spent Christmas back in my hometown, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Some of us took a pilgrimage of sorts to visit ancient and medieval art in New York City and Yale University’s Art Gallery in New Haven. Connecticut may seem an Read more…
Beer has a long connection to saints and holy figures. In The Beer Option, I discuss the beer miracles of St. Brigid of Kildare, St. Columban, and St. Arnold, St. Hildegard’s description of beer’s medicinal qualities, and St. Conrad of Read more…
This website focuses on rebuilding Catholic culture through art, festivity, education, Catholic history and traditions, and a life shaped by prayer. St. Martin of Tours (c.316-97) can be considered one of the original builders of Catholic culture. Thanks to Sulpitius Read more…
Halloween has become a national spectacle that ranges from cute to the macabre. In a culture that tries to forget death in daily life, it breaks forth dramatically and briefly each year, though in a way that trivializes it. Through Read more…